


Without You I Live Only In The Shadows

by PinePrincess



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Coming Out, During Rogue Nation, Ethan is Intense, Friends to Lovers, Homophobia, Ilsa handles her feelings with violence, M/M, Mutual Pining, Recovery, Slow Burn, Spies & Secret Agents, Spy Family, post rogue nation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2019-06-28 03:32:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15699291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinePrincess/pseuds/PinePrincess
Summary: Lane's treatment of Benji heads in a direction Benji was not prepared to deal with.Ethan and Benji during and after the events of Rogue Nation. Benji deals with his inconvenient feelings for Ethan, while Ethan is as enigmatic as ever.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> After doing a marathon of these movies recently (and then of course FALLOUT) I'm hardcore shipping these two!  
>  After Ethan's perspective in the prologue, the rest of the fic will be from Benji's POV :)
> 
> **The Rape/Non-Con tag only applies to something that happens in Chapter 2.
> 
> The title is a line from "Radiant" by Satellite Stories. ALSO, recently made a ficmix on 8tracks for this!
> 
> [Without You I Live Only In The Shadows](https://8tracks.com/pineprincess92/without-you-i-live-only-in-the-shadows-1?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button) from [PinePrincess92](http://8tracks.com/pineprincess92?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button) on [8tracks Radio](https://8tracks.com?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button).

Prologue: Ethan

 

Ethan surveyed his options. Luther, Brandt, Jane, or Benji. 

Brandt was out of the question. Sure, Ethan trusted him, and Brandt might even be willing to help him in some small way, but it was unlikely he’d go this far while so entrenched in the bureaucracy. Jane was out as well; not only was she on a new assignment for the CIA, but she didn’t have the computer skills Ethan needed right now. Which of course left him two options.

He missed Luther, but if he brought him here, Luther would be terribly rational, would surely believe him, but would also try to talk him into calling Brandt and making a deal with Hunley and the CIA. The problem was that Luther was _good_ , too good, and would care more about saving Ethan than trying to bring down Solomon Lane in this way.

Benji, on the other hand, was surely itching for danger. Ethan had always seen it in his eyes, the need to be trusted, to be put to the test. Even before his field work, when he’d complain over the phone about how much he shouldn’t be doing whatever it was Ethan was asking him to do, there was an excited edge to his voice, an obvious thrill at being involved.

When it came down to it, Luther would get Ethan out of trouble, while Benji might just get him in deeper.

And, of course, Benji might smile and wink at him and say something charmingly British. Ethan didn’t let himself too closely examine this thought, or the way it made him want to float a few inches above the ground. It made sense. Benji was the logical choice.

He mailed the Opera tickets, and waited.

 

Though he spoke in his ear throughout his journey to the opera house, Ethan didn’t catch sight of Benji until he reached the staircase up to the second level. He ducked behind a pillar, though all he wanted to do was stare at Benji, who looked surprisingly dashing in a tux and those black-rimmed glasses. Ethan supposed it had been quite a long time since Benji’s early days, when he’d followed Ethan around the Kremlin and muttered incessantly about how exciting it all was.

This Benji looked like he’d seen some shit, which, of course, he had. They’d been on dozens of missions together since the disaster at the Kremlin, since Hendricks, and Ethan hadn’t noticed until now how thoroughly all of it had doused that early, nervous enthusiasm, and replaced it with something calculating, almost sly. It was both admirable and a little sad.

“Nice tux, by the way,” Ethan said, when he’d finished with his instructions. He couldn’t help it, he needed Benji to know he was there. Benji jumped and spun on the spot, looking for where he could be hiding. Ethan smiled, and in doing so realized he probably had not smiled in months. For a second his heart leapt, lungs clenched like he couldn’t breathe, and he had to look away. He hadn’t seen anyone, spoken to anyone from the IMF in six months. Catching Lane was more important than anything, more important than friends. But he had to admit, seeing Benji again… it was nice.

 

 

 

Benji

 

They’d just been shot at, escaped from Austrian police and the Syndicate, and pushed a mysterious woman out of their car. After six months of Halo and lies, Benji felt properly alive again. He’d gotten to wear a tux, fight off a crazy assassin, and most importantly, find Ethan. Well, he supposed Ethan had found him. 

A thrill went through him at the thought, only for a moment, only a blip on a hypothetical polygraph—he’d gotten very good at predicting and regulating the patterns of his heart—and he smothered it immediately. Ethan needed him for a reason. _Don’t act like a rookie,_ he told himself, _don’t act like a schoolboy._

They walked in silence through the dark street, Benji following Ethan’s outline as he led him towards the Danube river, toward an old houseboat. He was dying to ask him what was going on, and why it was Benji here and not, say, Luther, who was retired and not suspected by the CIA to be doing this exact thing. Or Jane, who was not only a far better field agent, but was so eagle-eyed she probably could have picked Lane out of the crowd with no tech at all.

So why had Ethan brought him here instead?

It was in the back of his mind even as he got all his other answers, through Ethan’s explanation of the Syndicate and their plans, and then through their argument and Benji’s staunch proclamation— _So I am staying!—_ and even as Ethan stared at him and Benji’s face went red, realizing that no one had looked at him precisely like that is so very long.

“Okay,” Ethan said, as though even he was surprised he was saying it.

With Ethan’s drawings (why was he so ridiculously _good_ at everything?), and Ilsa Faust’s lipstick flash drive, they formed a half-baked plan.

 

Ethan cleared off the bottom bunk, tossing piles of papers, rolls of string, and a pair of shoes into a pile on the table so Benji would have a place to sleep for a few hours before they flew to Casablanca. He stripped off his jacket and white button down before realizing all of his things were back at the hotel that was by now surely swarming with CIA agents, and he had nothing to wear. Ethan probably slept in the buff, the maniac. _Don’t think about that, don’t picture that,_ but too late, he couldn’t help but composite an image based on all the glimpses of Ethan’s body he’d caught over the years. _Get ahold of yourself,_ he told himself, _Ethan didn’t bring you here for you to get dodgy at the mere prospect of nudity._

“Ethan, can I borrow a shirt or something—?”

He turned around and Ethan looked up at him from his tablet screen. Ethan blinked, eyes going wide.

“What?” Benji said, suddenly self conscious, face heating up.

Ethan shook his head a little, like he did when he’d just been hit in the face.

“You’ve been working out,” he said, looking him up and down. “Shit, Benji, do you have nothing better to do at the CIA?”

Benji’s face burned even hotter. Sure, his abs had made their first appearance since his twenties, but he’d never expected Ethan to notice. Or to be impressed.

He felt himself laugh, suddenly feeling a bit drunk. “I suppose not, no.”

Ethan kept looking at him, in that way only he could: eyes hard, a little too intense, no matter what the situation, and Benji felt a swooping sensation in his stomach, as though gravity had momentarily given up on him. Ethan didn’t even break eye contact when he took a step to the side and opened a drawer one-handed, pulling out a shirt at random and tossing it at Benji.

“Thanks, mate,” Benji said, and caught it, suddenly not sure where to look. Sometimes Ethan was impossible to decipher. 

 

Benji had never quite had a handle on it, his thing about Ethan. Sure, it had started as basic hero worship, might as well have been a crush on James Bond. But the more they worked together, the more it twisted around him, deepened into something real. Ethan was his friend, as he’d said, regardless of what he told the weekly polygraph, but it was more than that, it always had been. He couldn’t help thinking about Ethan when he closed his eyes at night, couldn’t help looking at him even when someone else was speaking. He wasn’t sure if Ethan or even any of the others could tell—despite his training and field work, he was still not the best at reading people—but Benji was all too aware of just what he would do for Ethan. Anything. It scared him, the depth of that word, and where it might take him.

“You awake?” Ethan’s voice from the top bunk startled him away from the edges of sleep.

“Yeah, ‘course,” he said, eyes snapping open. It wasn’t often they’d shared quarters this tight before. Once they’d slept on the floor of a safe-house, several times in various cars, but they’d usually been with others, with Brandt or Luther or Jane, someone to distract Benji, to dilute the extra senses he seemed to develop in Ethan’s presence. 

Ethan was quiet for a moment, and Benji felt like he was reaching out into the silence, waiting for a response he wasn’t entirely sure would come.

“Benji,” Ethan said, and the bunk shifted as though Ethan was about to peer over the side like they were kids at summer camp. The movement stilled. “I really… I mean… Thank you for coming. Thank you for staying.”

“Despite your best efforts,” Benji said, grinning.

“Sometimes I worry about you. I mean, I worry about everyone. About the team.”

Benji nodded, trying not to feel cold at these words, at Ethan’s automatic amendment.

“Yeah, well. It’s only natural,” he said. “Everyone worries.”

“True, but you…” Ethan trails off.

Benji waits for him to continue, even as fog rolls over him and he drifts off into sleep, his dreams full of Ethan’s voice saying _but you, but you, but you._

 

Just before the incident with the stollen nerve gas— _open the door, Benji!—_ they’d been on a stake-out mission in Turkey, just the two of them, before Brandt started needling them for intel over the phone, and before Benji called for Luther’s assistance with that God damn Chechen plane.

The warehouse was completely dead, save for the one guard at the inconveniently CCTV-free entrance. Benji could hack just about anything with a camera, but in blind spots they had to go in the old fashioned way. He couldn’t help loving it; the dingy street at the edge of the city, the abandoned building they were hidden in, the way Ethan made everything feel casual and extremely significant at the same time. They lay side by side under a glassless window, dressed head to toe in black.

Ethan stared through night vision binoculars for at least an hour before speaking.

“They’re not gonna store it here,” he said.

“What? What makes you say that? That guy we intercepted—”

“If they were gonna do it they’d have been here by now,” Ethan said, pulling off the binoculars and blinking.

Benji sighed. It had been a long shot anyway. “They might still come,” he said. “We can’t just leave.”

Ethan rubbed a hand over his face. “I know. We’re still here all night.”

They lay in silence for a few minutes, half of Benji wishing he was asleep back at the safe house, and half of him overly aware of the proximity of Ethan’s arm to his. He was so close Benji could feel heat coming off of him, even through the chill of the night.

“They ever make you do those word associations in a psych eval?” Ethan said, still staring down at the lone guard by the warehouse entrance. Benji looked down at him too and wondered if Ethan was right. He looked bored down there, close to nodding off. If he was expecting a shipment he might be more alert. Unless he was an old hat at this.

“Course,” he said, quietly. No one was as up front about their psych evals as Ethan, something Benji found both helpful and uncomfortable.

“Let’s do one.”

“What? A psych eval?”

“A word association game,” Ethan said, and glanced over at him with a half smile. “Just to pass the time.”

Benji shifted slightly, his elbows aching from their position beneath the window. “Alright.”

Ethan returned to staring out the window.

“Okay, there are two rules. One, you can’t say any word that’s been said before, and two, you can’t take longer than three seconds to answer.”

“Or what?”

“What do you mean, or what? Or you’ll lose.”

“I didn’t know it was a competition.”

“It’s a _game_ Benji, that’s the point.”

“Alright, fine, fine, you have to start though.”

Ethan smiled again and Benji had to look away.

“Stake-out,” he said.

“Er—warehouse.”

“So creative,” Ethan said.

“You’re the one who just described what we’re literally doing right now—”

“Door.”

“Oh, er—locked.”

“Safe.”

“Train.” 

Ethan gave him an odd look, but didn’t miss a beat. “Car.”

“Crash.”

“Bridge.”

“Collapse.”

Ethan chuckled. “Morbid.”

Benji grinned “Work.”

“Friends.” He could hear the smile in Ethan’s voice.

“Us,” Benji said, and immediately wanted to smack himself. But Ethan continued.

“Good,” he said, and Benji let out a snort of embarrassed laughter.

“Us good?” he said, and Ethan laughed silently.

Ethan slung an arm around Benji’s shoulder and jostled him back and forth. Benji grinned over at him, face going red.

“Us real good,” Ethan said. 

“At grammar, clearly,” Benji said, and fixed his eyes ahead. Ethan snickered and buried his face in the crook of Benji’s neck, arm still around his shoulder, nose brushing his cheek. He stayed there, grip on Benji’s shoulder tightening, until his laughter quieted and Benji’s heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest. Ethan’s breath was hot on his neck.

Benji had become used to these random, intense displays of affection from Ethan, but after years in the field together still had no idea what they meant. If they meant anything at all.

“You lose, by the way,” Ethan said, slipping away from him and nudging into his shoulder. Benji nudged back and shook his head.

An hour later Ethan was half asleep with the binoculars still pressed to his face, and Benji suggested they take turns on watch. Despite having been awake for over twenty hours, Ethan argued with Benji about who would sleep first until Benji finally put his foot down and told Ethan to close his damn eyes. He turned onto his back and lay there with his arms behind his head. Benji had to force himself to keep his eyes on the warehouse and not on Ethan’s face.

Silence stretched so long that Benji was sure Ethan was asleep, until he spoke quietly, eyes still shut.

“So why are trains safe?”

“You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

“Can’t sleep.”

“You’re ridiculous.” Benji sighed. “When I was a kid my parents were… well they were a bit shite, really, but my nan was lovely, and I would stay with her every few months when things got out of hand at home. She lived outside the city and at night I could hear a train whistle in the distance and it just felt… I dunno.”

“Safe,” Ethan said.

“I suppose. Word association and all that. Guess it brought it back.”

Ethan kept his eyes closed. His voice sounded tired, despite what he said. “You’ve never mentioned your childhood before.”

“Not much to tell, really,” Benji shrugged.

“Still. You know about my mom, the farm, Julia. And I don’t even know if you’ve ever been married. I know more about your video games interests than your personal life.”

Benji sighed and chewed on his lip, not entirely sure he wanted to follow this line of conversation.

“That’s because my _Civilization_ scores are significantly more interesting than my love life.”

Ethan smiled and shifted where he lay, eyes still closed as though there was still any possibility of him getting sleep. “That can’t possibly be true.”

“Oh it is, I promise. Never even been close to marriage, and my last real relationship ended about six years ago.”

“Before Hendricks?”

“A bit before, yeah. Field work isn’t exactly conducive to healthy relationships.”

“Tell me about it,” Ethan said. “What about casual relationships?”

“Is field work conducive to them?”

“No, I meant what about you and casual relationships? You said your last real relationship, what about not a real relationship?”

Benji swallowed. He definitely did not want to follow this line of conversation. He’d spent the last three months in Russia and Eastern Europe where, for him, pursuing any kind of relationship, real or not, could be more dangerous than his job as an actual spy.

“I guess I’m not great at those either.”

“So you’re not seeing anyone?”

The few times they’d ever talked like this Ethan had always seemed to follow Benji’s lead and avoid pronouns, which made Benji wonder if Ethan _knew_ , which then him wonder why on earth Benji didn’t just tell him.

“Not even a little bit. What about you? How is Julia?” he said, hoping to shift focus. 

The guard outside had begun to pace back and forth.

“Remarried.”

Benji looked down. Ethan opened his eyes but Benji couldn’t read anything in his face.

“Shit, Ethan… I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be,” he said. “It didn’t work out. And I want her to be happy.”

They were quiet for a long moment, Ethan’s eyes on him, Benji not sure where to look.

“When?”

“About a year ago. Luther told me last time I saw him.” Benji remembered. Ethan had been weird and quiet the entire plane ride home, but Benji hadn’t really thought anything of it.

“And you got me talking about me again,” Ethan said. “Tell me about this ‘real’ relationship. How long did it last? Where did you meet?”

Benji grinned and shook his head. “You are one nosy son of a bitch, Ethan Hunt.”

Ethan smiled in a way that made Benji’s insides melt.

“It’s in the job description.”

Benji took a deep breath and looked back at the warehouse, wondering how he should answer. He’d met Nick at the gym. It lasted a year and a half, until Benji was away so often that it became almost impossible not to tell him about his job. And when he was home he was usually covered in unexplainable cuts and bruises. It had quickly fallen apart.

Ethan sat up a bit, and Benji could feel his eyes still on him. “Benji—”

“Shit, look,” Benji hissed, and nodded to the guard at the entrance who had stopped pacing and was standing in the middle of the alleyway, bathed in approaching headlights. Ethan spun around and grabbed his binoculars and they watched the SUV pull up to the warehouse entrance.

“We’ve got to get down there,” Ethan said, and with one final, long, confusing look at Benji, they packed up their equipment and slipped out into the night.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the end note for more detail about the non-con sex act that happens in this chapter.

After seeing Ethan nearly dead outside the water tank, after Ilsa running away, after the car crash, after Brandt and Luther showed up, after they got ahold of the stupid bloody red box, after everything, Benji had almost thought they were in the clear, that things were looking up. 

It didn’t matter that Ilsa—beautiful, mysterious Ilsa—was asking Ethan to run away with her, that if Ethan said yes he would disappear and Benji might never see him again, and that Ethan was taking a hell of a long time to answer her. He’d told himself again and again over the past few days that he didn’t care about their obvious flirtation, didn’t care that they’d probably end up in an epic super-spy romance, because Ethan was his friend and he wanted him to be happy. 

And also Ethan was hopelessly straight, and Benji didn’t stand a chance anyway. Right? All of those little moments they’d had, those little displays of affection had been between friends. Right?

“Lane sent you to deliver a message, didn’t he?” Ethan said, and Benji breathed a sigh of relief.

He barely felt the prick of the needle in the side of his neck.

 

Benji woke with a start. He was strapped to a chair in what looked like a basic office building, his head pounding, his pulse skyrocketing when he remembered what had happened; The hulking man that steered him away, out of the airport as his vision went blurry. He blinked quickly and surveyed his surroundings.

Two men stood in front of the doorway. Vinter leaned against a desk to Benji’s right, playing with a pocket knife. Lane stood directly in front of him, empty syringe held in his hand. He snapped his fingers in Benji’s face, and Benji recoiled.

“Good, you’re awake,” Lane said. He dropped the syringe in a trash can and strode across the room, taking a seat behind a large desk. It was ten feet from where Benji sat, but Lane didn’t bother to raise his voice in the slightest. “Sometimes there are… complications with that particular drug.”

Benji blinked, wondering for a split second why Lane would care about his wellbeing. But of course: he was to be the bait.

“But it seems to have been the perfect choice in this case. It rendered you so beautifully compliant.”

Benji tugged on his restraints. They held fast. Even if he got free of them there were four men with guns between him and the door, and he was not Ethan Hunt. Other options then: talk his way out—unlikely, he had no bargaining chips and didn’t want to give Lane any information he might not already have. Try to make a deal—distasteful to the point of being impossible, and no the kind of impossible that Ethan regularly made possible. All he could do was sit there and see what Lane had in store for him. Shit.

Lane folded his creepily gloved hands on the desk and cocked his head slightly as he looked over Benji.

“We’ve got—” he rolled up a glove to check his watch— “six hours until time’s up.”

Something unspoken hung in the air, something like, _what should I do with you until then?_ Benji looked down, refused to look him in the eye, pretended he couldn’t hear him, pretended he wasn’t even there. Maybe if he stared hard enough at the floor he could disappear into it.

_Until time’s up._ That meant there was already a deal in place. Ethan—or someone—would have to have to bring Lane the disk in exchange for Benji. That meant getting the Prime Minister. And Lane would probably set a trap, there was always a bloody trap…

The floor slid in and out of focus.

He was still woozy from whatever they had given him, and combined with the adrenalin and heightened senses brought on by fear, he felt a bit high, like he’d taken a strange turn during a bad trip. Like he was back in grad school, dropping acid with the programmers and daydreaming about the rest of his life, never once thinking he would someday be kidnapped by a bloody psychopath…

“Look at me,” Lane said. His voice was terrible, horrifying. Maybe none of this was really his fault, because how could he be anything but this monster with a voice like that? Benji kept his eyes on the dirty floor, staring long enough at a smudge that it started to look like Ethan’s face. _Don’t think about Ethan._ He’d failed him. He’d let his guard down; he’d been captured. Whatever happened next was his fault. 

For just a moment Benji thought back to that moment after he’d been shocked with the defibrillator, when he’d staggered to his feet and Ethan had leaned against him, both of them in pain, both struggling to put it aside. It bad barely even been a moment, really, it was more like a small, inconvenient voice was speaking in the back of his head, an area he’d gotten so good at ignoring. Ethan had shrugged on his shirt and said _can you walk?_ and Benji had nodded even as that small voice had said _wait,_ and wanted to grab Ethan by the elbows and hold him still. 

He closed his eyes, trying to forget where he was. _Think about that_ , he told himself, picturing the way Ethan’s eyes had slid in and out of focus as he grappled with newly regained consciousness, his hands all over Benji’s chest as he tried to keep himself upright, Benji’s arms stiff at his sides like his body knew that if they reached out he would do something stupid, something he’d been ignoring semi-successfully for years—

“Benji, look at me.”

He flinched at the sound of his own name in that awful voice, and looked up. Lane smiled at him, and Benji felt as though he was staring down a shark. There was absolutely nothing behind the man’s eyes.

“I’m not going to insult you by trying to turn you, we both know you’re far too loyal for that. Not loyal to the CIA, of course. Loyal to Ethan.”

What was Ethan doing right now? How could they possibly get the Prime Minister to open the red box? Was Benji really even worth the effort? Luther could do everything he could do with a computer, Brandt and Jane were both far better field agents, why in hell had Ethan sent for him? His loyalty might feel nice, but it wouldn’t get him into a thrice encrypted computer disk, and now everything had gone to shit because Benji had been staring at the back of Ethan’s head instead of staying vigilant of his surroundings—

“Hunt is terribly predictable, you know,” Lane said, and Benji suddenly wanted to roll his eyes. Maybe the guy would just keep monologuing for the next six hours and this wouldn’t get any worse. “Same patterns of behavior, same… weaknesses.” Lane stared at him as though he was waiting for some kind of answer, but Benji could hardly pay attention to what he was saying.

A phone rang, and after another few seconds of unblinking stare, Lane answered it and waited silently for the caller to stop speaking. “Yes. I’ll send a car.”

He turned and tossed the phone toward the two men by the door. “Bring in Miss Faust.” They nodded and left.

Benji felt a tiny stir of hope, quickly doused by the reality of the situation. It was true Ilsa had saved Ethan from this man in the past, but she was still paying for that, still earning back his trust bit by bit. Perhaps this would just be another of her tests. Vinter finally put down the pocket knife and looked over at Benji, cracking his knuckles. It was so cartoonish that Benji might have laughed if he could muster the energy.

Lane launched back into it as though he hadn’t been interrupted. “He’s a gambler, your friend. And if something is taken from him, something he cares about, and he’ll gamble away everything he has left until he has it back. That is, of course, why it had to be you.”

Vinter opened a stained briefcase and made a show of testing the sharpness of each knife.

Benji flushed and looked back down at the floor. _Something Ethan cares about._ He shook his head, giving himself a mental kick. This was not the time or place to be thinking about Ethan’s feelings. Or more likely, lack-thereof. Lane was just playing with him.

“I suppose I could have dangled Miss Faust in front of him, threatened to put a bullet in her head if he didn’t do as I asked, but you’re just too perfect. The long time friend, perhaps the one friend he really can’t live without. He hasn’t spoken to his wife in almost ten years, but he couldn’t go six months without contacting you. Now, what does that mean, I wonder?” He smiled again. “Vinter, put away your toys. This isn’t the time.”

Vinter shut the case, scowling in Benji’s direction as though this decision was his fault. Lane stared at him some more, the silence building until Benji wondered, madly, if he should say something, anything, to break it. But Lane stood suddenly and meandered around the desk, touching things at random.

“You should have seen the look on his face when he saw the video of your unconscious body in the back of a van,” Lane said, and Benji flushed, not wanting to think about Ethan looking at his dumb, knocked-out face.

“We have CCTV of the parking garage, he sprinted after it, with that look on his face, you know the one, Benji. Focused, driven, as though the entire world would end if he didn’t reach that van. He didn’t, of course, and here we are.” Lane looked back at Benji, strode towards him slowly with his hands loose in his pockets. “So what to do with you now? You, perhaps the one person whose death would feel like the end of the world to Ethan Hunt.”

Benji felt as though he was being X-rayed as Lane looked him up and down, eyes wide, lingering. Benji was suddenly very conscious that his feet were tied on either side of the chair, wide apart, when Lane’s gaze paused between his legs. Benji felt his skin prickle, felt a new kind of fear course through him, a desperate, crazed kind of fear.

Lane stood there, unmoving but somehow seemingly closer and closer to Benji until he squirmed under his gaze. Something shifted in the room, turned cold.

“I wonder,” Lane said, and Benji realized the softer his voice, the more terrifying it was. “Does Ethan go to bed with all of his friends?”

Benji’s eyes snapped up to him. “What?!”

Lane smiled, and for half a second he looked like a doctor, or a professor, someone unassuming, on first name basis with everyone he met, someone who used a euphemism like _go to bed with_ instead of anything more crass. But the smile widened into a leer.

“So you can be compelled to speak,” he said. “With the right shock, to the right nerve. I see.”

Benji glared at him, teeth bared. He knew he was giving Lane exactly what he wanted but he couldn’t help it, he was tired of this little speech.

“I won’t pretend to know the precise nature of your relationship,” Lane said, eyes bright. “I can not read your mind, after all. But I have been watching you, Benji. And Ethan, of course.”

Benji wished he could stop Ethan’s name from being spoken in that horrible voice.

“No wife, no girlfriends as far as anyone at work is aware of, and an obvious, if unacknowledged, fixation on Ethan Hunt.” 

Out of the corner of Benji’s eye, the Bone Doctor fidgeted, scowling.

Benji stared hard at the floor again, suddenly determined to think of anything except Ethan. Lane took two steps away from his desk and stood in the middle of the room.

“I don’t think you’ve actually been to bed with Ethan, Benji,” he said, almost gently. “But I do think you’d very much like to.”

“Aren’t you busy taking over the world, or something?” Benji snapped. “Don’t you have more evil things to do than talk at me?”

Lane shrugged. “There is always work to be done of course. But playing with you seems so much more fun.”

Benji cringed and clenched his jaw.

“It must drive you crazy: constantly around him, on missions with him, just close enough to touch but knowing you shouldn’t.”

Benji closed his eyes and tried to think of anything else—tried to figure out where he was for starters. Not that it would help him now. He could hear traffic outside, there was bright daylight streaming in from the window behind him, they were high up, far above street level—

“Vinter,” Lane said, “hurt him, please.”

Benji’s eyes flew open. The Bone Doctor smiled and took off his ring. It was worse for how long it took to come, for all the seconds Benji had to sit there and wait for it. When Vinter’s fist finally connected with his chest, forced all the air out of him, it was almost a relief. He was determined not to cry out, not to give them the satisfaction, but he couldn’t help his involuntary grunts of pain as Vinter hit him again and again. The blows landed in different places, precisely chosen so as not to crack a rib. The goal here was pain, Benji knew, not actual harm.

“Stop,” Lane said, and Vinter stopped immediately, leaving Benji’s body pulsing. He couldn’t think, every moment was overwhelming. Lane folded and unfolded his arms, as though he couldn’t decide where he wanted them, and circled around to Benji’s right. Vinter’s fists hung heavy at his sides as he stood in front of Benji, waiting for further instruction.

Lane cocked his head slightly.

“Undo his trousers,” he said, and pure terror momentarily wiped all pain from Benji’s mind. Vinter yanked his flies down, pulling them apart to reveal Benji’s navy blue boxers. Vinter straightened up and stood between Benji’s open legs.

“Do you imagine Ethan’s hands on you?” Lane said softly.

Benji tried to block him out, focus on the pain, focus on his thumping heart—

“Do you think about him at night? When he’s just in the next room? He could walk it at any moment but you can’t help yourself, can you?”

Lane took a few steps closer. He didn’t lean over, didn’t quite speak into Benji’s ear, his voice just slithered down to him, wrapped itself around his throat like a snake.

“Think about him now, Benji. Think about his hands, his body. He’s touched you before, surely. Maybe not in the way that you want, but in other small ways, things you’ve held onto and fantasized about for years. You can’t help but wonder if he does the same, if he holds onto memories of you.”

Benji tried to remember the opening of _Turandot,_ the opera he didn’t actually get to see. Maybe someday he would make Ethan buy him tickets for real. Maybe someday—

“He doesn’t do anything by half, does he?” Lane said. “You’ve thought about what it would be like in bed with him, if it would be wild, passionate, just as intense as those long bouts of eye contact the two of you like to share.”

Then Lane did lean down, spoke directly into Benji’s ear.

“He doesn’t do that with everybody, you know. Just you.”

Benji could feel his breathe on the shell of his ear, was scared he might feel that mouth brush against him.

“You think about him on top of you, inside you, think about just how well he would fuck you.”

Lane’s hand hovered over his crotch.

Benji blinked, realizing all at once that Lane was trying to get him hard. Any sexual thoughts of Ethan that had begun to brew at the back of his mind were thoroughly doused in Benji’s revulsion. He clenched his jaw and turned to look Lane full in the face. They were inches away, and Benji snarled at him, feeling suddenly rabid. He wanted nothing more than to rip at Lane’s throat with his teeth.

Lane blinked once and pulled away smoothly.

“Ah well,” he said, and folded his arms again, glancing at Vinter. “Perhaps you’ll have better luck.”

Benji didn’t even have time to worry about what that meant before Vinter grabbed a handful of hair at the back of his head with one hand, and pulled down his own flies with his other. Benji knew his bonds were unyielding, but couldn’t stop his body from flailing, tugging at the zip-ties around his wrists and ankles until his skin was slick with blood. Vinter shoved a hand into his own trousers and pulled out his cock in one fluid motion, but hesitated. He let go of himself and grabbed Benji’s chin, hard enough to bruise, and forced him to look up into his face.

“If you bite,” he said, “you die a slow, bloody death. So do your friends. So does the bitch. So does Hunt, your _älskare_.”

He let go of Benji’s face and his hand returned to his hardening cock. He sneered down at Benji.

“I’m not like you, little man,” he said, but Benji already knew Vinter wasn’t hard for him, it was the control he had over him, the power. It was the fact that he was tied up, the fact that he so badly wanted to bite.

The was a knock at the door and Vinter look around, cock held in one hand. Benji could see Lane open the door in his peripheral vision.

“Just in time,” Lane said. The two guards took up their positions again on either side of the door, standing motionless, staring at nothing. 

“Ilsa,” Benji said when she came into his view, Lane dragging her by the wrist. He hadn’t meant to say her name, and she glared daggers at him, even as he saw her nostrils flare and jaw clench as she took in the situation before her. Lane smiled his shark smile and let his hand rest at the back of her neck.

“I’d like you to watch,” he said. 

Benji had no idea what was going on in Ilsa’s head. Her face was cold, eyes hard, but there was a glint to them, and her nails dug into her skin when she crossed her arms. She stared back at him, giving him nothing.

Finally, Vinter forced his face forwards and Benji clenched his eyes shut, knew he had to if he was going to get through this. His mind and body wanted so badly to be somewhere else that at first it wasn’t too hard to think about other times, back at uni with boyfriends and hook-ups, the one time with his Abstract Algebra professor. Even when it was a mistake it was stupid and messy and fun and nothing at all like this.

Vinter pulled his hair harder, didn’t wait for any sort of performance from him, just shoved in again and again until the back of Benji’s throat felt raw and he had to subdue his gag-reflex. Benji thought about the pain in his ribs, tried to disappear into it. Somewhere inside him was screaming, flailing madly against his bonds even as his body was still. Vinter’s growl was all the warning he gave before coming in Benji’s mouth and down the back of his throat. He had to swallow so he didn’t choke. 

Benji went slack for the last few aftershocks of the orgasm, refusing to continue, forcing Vinter to hold his head up until Vinter shoved his face away and took a few steps back, panting.

Benji’s eyes flew open. He spat out everything that was left in his mouth, just barely stopping himself from vomiting, and rounded on Lane.

“Is this what you get off on, you sick fuck?!” he shouted at Lane’s still smiling face. “Pulling all the strings, making people do whatever you want them to, even with something like—” he cut off abruptly, because what had just happened was _not_ sex, and he refused to name is as such. He wanted to cry, could feel it building at the back of his abused throat. He hadn’t been trained for this, had no idea what to do now, wished someone would do his flies back up before Lane got any other ideas.

He took a deep, shivering breath and stared again at Ilsa, but even as they made eye contact he understood that she could do nothing to help him. He’d given himself away, saying her name, hoping she’d step in. If she said anything now, even just provided a distraction, Lane would have another nugget of observable human emotion to dissect and delight over. For Ilsa, everything was a test, and neither of them could afford for her to fail this one.

Benji closed his eyes again, feeling numb resignation creeping up on him, ready to kill the fight in him, to turn him off completely.

“Vinter—” 

Lane was cut off by the phone, which he picked up on the third ring.

“I see,” he said, after a moment. “I’ll be there soon.” 

Benji opened his eyes in time to see Lane pocket the phone and gesture vaguely in Benji’s direction.

“Get him ready, please,” he said, and left.

The room was heavy and silent after the door shut. Then Vinter tucked his cock back into his pants and rounded on Benji. He licked his lips. Ilsa glanced between them quickly and started forward, her eyes hard enough to cut glass.

“You heard Lane, where is the—”

“You like my cock in your mouth, little man?” Vinter said, smirking down at Benji. He refused to look back at him, instead glowering at a point on the wall to his left, wishing he’d had the guts to bite.

Vinter’s hand flew out of nowhere, smacking him across the face, twice in quick succession.

“Like that, did you? You fucking—”

He wound up again but Ilsa caught his wrist mid-swing.

“Lane told us to get him ready,” she said, voice icy.

Vinter dropped his fist and sneered at her.

“Soft woman, can’t stand to see a little _bög_ like him in pain—”

So swiftly Benji didn’t see it coming, he felt Ilsa’s fist strike him in the ribs. He swallowed a cry. Vinter’s blows had knocked the air out of him, but he knew Ilsa’s would be turning black already beneath his shirt. It was like someone had lobbed a rock at his chest.

“Lane also told us to leave his face alone,” she said, and sauntered away. Vinter growled low in his throat and after a moment of clear indecision, circled around behind Benji’s chair.

“Would you like to do the honors, or shall I?” Ilsa said, turning around to lean against Lane’s desk, and Benji went cold as he heard Vinter slide something heavy up off the floor.

 

 

“You’ve got to stop looking at me like that,” Ilsa said.

She led him by the arm through the busy square, heading for the open air cafe they’d set as the meeting point. Her hand was unnecessarily tight on his forearm. He was strapped to a bomb; it’s not like he was going anywhere. 

“Like what?” he said, eyeing Lane’s men, tailing them on all sides from just outside the blast radius.

“Like a kicked puppy,” Ilsa said, her face still tight and cold, but her voice breaking just slightly. 

Benji might have been angry, might have resented this, if he could feel anything other than mind-numbing terror. What had happened in Lane’s office, and now the bomb and the promise of Ethan and himself being blown to bits by it—it was too much. He knew his body would slide into shock if he wasn’t careful, could feel the edge of nothingness pressed against his mind, ready at a moment’s notice to take control.

“Terribly sorry, Miss Faust,” he said, voice as cruel as he could make it, and Ilsa looked at her feet.

He knew it wasn’t her fault, none of this was, but he couldn’t help it. He needed something to lash out at and she was in his line of fire.

They marched across a bridge and the cafe came into view. Its low, twinkling lights made something catch in Benji’s throat. If he was going to be blown up he’d rather it be somewhere somewhere fittingly horrible. This place was beautiful, where he should be drinking wine on holiday and chatting up someone lovely, the rest of his life full and entirely within his grasp.

“I’m sorry I didn’t stop Vinter,” Ilsa whispered in Benji’s ear as they headed for the cafe.

“What are you doing?” he hissed, nearly jerking away from her. “Lane will hear that.”

She scowled. “Maybe I want him to.”

Benji was silent as they walked, trying not to think about what had happened a few hours ago, knowing it would only make his mind clench up even tighter.

“It’s alright,” he said, his voice softening. “You didn’t have any more of a choice than I did.”

Ilsa said nothing, but she dropped his arm and instead slid her hand into his. Lane could see everything he saw, hear everything he heard, but he couldn’t feel him squeeze Ilsa’s hand in return.

He wanted to cry again, because he knew that right now they looked like any other couple walking across the courtyard holding hands, and he also knew that nothing like this would ever again happen for him in real life. Not that Ilsa was someone he particularly wanted to stare at longingly in the moonlight. But there could have been others. There could have been Ethan…

He didn’t want to think about Ethan, not after everything Lane had just said to him, but he was tired of _not_ thinking about Ethan, of pushing him out of his head for his own self-preservation. In thirty minutes he was going to die, either by bomb, Ilsa’s gun, or a bullet from one of Lane’s men, why shouldn’t he spend the time remaining to him thinking about all the things he’d denied himself for the last ten years?

As much as he hated to admit it, Lane had been right. All those times throughout his field agent career when Ethan had touched him—a hand on his shoulder, a clap on the back as they laughed, a one-armed hug that lasted just a little too long—they’d formed a catalogue in his mind for him to obsess over when he was alone. And now Ethan did things like stare at and compliment his physique, and say his name breathlessly after coming back from the dead.

Ilsa pulled him toward an empty table and let go of him. Her warmth in his hand evaporated instantly.

“The bomb is rigged to a pressure trigger to be set off if you stand up,” she said. “So choose your positioning wisely.”

Benji pulled out a chair and sat down slowly. He may as well have been stepping down on a land mind.

He wondered vaguely if his life would flash before his eyes, if it was happening right now somehow and he was just ignoring it, tuned into the wrong channel. But no. He felt numb, detached but absolutely present, unable to fathom the previous moment, or the next. The minutes ticked by, one single second at a time. Ilsa hardly moved next to him, and the people around them faded away to shadow.

The instant he saw Ethan, it all came rushing back—the chill of the night, the worthless attempt by his brain to see a way out of this thing, all remaining horror he was still wrapped up in from his encounter with Vinter—and when Ethan laid a hand on his shoulder he wished it was just like all the other times, wished it was just as simple and trivial a gesture.

 

 

Even with him safely behind bulletproof glass, Benji could barely stand to be so close to Lane. He wanted nothing more than to put a bullet in his head right then, and he couldn’t help but flinch when Lane opened fire at Ethan. The bullets bounced away uselessly, and Ethan didn’t even blink. Lane rested his fists on the glass as the box filled with gas, still far too close to Ethan for Benji’s comfort. 

_Do you imagine Ethan’s hands on you? Do you think about him at night?_ He shook his head to rid himself of Lane’s voice.

Benji couldn’t seem to make himself look away from Ethan, who couldn’t seem to look away from Lane, though Benji didn’t think he could handle Ethan’s eyes on him right now anyway. He had so utterly failed him. At least they’d gotten Lane—that was what mattered, not Benji’s wounded pride. Or anything else that had happened that afternoon.

Lane disappeared behind the fog, and Ethan shoved the box over and onto the ramp. 

The five of them took a collective breath, then turned on the lights and broke down their little scene.

“Vinter?” Ethan said, as they loaded the glass box into the van.

Ilsa locked eyes with Benji.

“I cut his throat,” she said, and something uncoiled from inside Benji’s chest. He felt sick, overwhelmed at the realization that a dead man’s come was still churning inside him. He nodded at Ilsa.

“Thank you,” he said, hoping only she would hear, though Ethan’s eyes shot to him immediately.

Benji looked away, and slammed the door shut behind Lane’s glass prison. He stood there, his mind racing, unable to think straight. He’d been through car chases and shoot-outs, he’d broken into high-security facilities all over the world, he’d killed people. He’d even, on occasion, been tied up, been captured or held against his will. But never before had anyone made him feel so utterly small—so weak and useless, scared for something other than just his life, scared for his body, for his sanity—than the now unconscious man behind the glass. The fact that they’d caught him wasn’t exactly comforting. It felt like bringing a predator into their nest.

Distantly he knew that Ethan was saying his name, but he couldn’t do anything about it. What if he didn’t belong here? What if everything he’d been training for for the past decade was worthless? A hand fell heavy on his shoulder.

“Benji,” Ethan said, and when he turned towards him, Ethan wrapped his arms around him.

Part of Benji, the part that was so ashamed to have played the damsel, wanted to throw Ethan off him, prove that he didn’t need comfort, or whatever this was. But the other part, the one that had screamed silently, madly, when Vinter had been in his mouth, wanted to disappear entirely into Ethan’s arms.

Ethan didn’t say anything, just held him tightly and rested his chin on Benji’s shoulder. After a moment of uncertainty, Benji hugged him back, and Ethan turned his head and breathed into Benji’s hair. Benji tried not to think, tried to banish every impulse his brain might have to recall Lane’s horrible voice in his ear.

Ethan hugged like he did everything else—all in, no half measures, body pressed entirely up against Benji, hands clenched in the back of Benji’s shirt. Benji clung to him as well. He couldn’t help it, wanted to collapse in his arms, wanted to feel Ethan’s solid, slightly shorter frame propping him up.

“I’m sorry,” he said in Ethan’s ear. 

Ethan pulled back slightly, arms still around his back. Benji could feel his heat.

“For what?” he said, seemingly at a loss, and his face was so close that for a moment Benji couldn’t breathe. He just stared at him, trying to keep his head on straight, trying to ignore the sparks in his veins.

“I—I got kidnapped,” he said. “I ruined the entire plan because I wasn’t paying attention.”

He expected Ethan to pull away and give him some bullshit ‘it’s not your fault’ speech. But Ethan grabbed his shoulders, adrenalin still clearly coursing through him from the chase. Benji could see the intensity in his eyes..

“Benji, when does any of this ever go according to plan? Yes, it could have ended horribly, but it didn’t. And if things hadn’t gone the way they had, we might not have gotten Lane.”

“Yeah,” Benji said, exasperated, determined suddenly to be reprimanded for his mistakes, “but that only happened because you managed—”

“Let’s go, team!” Brandt called back to them, and the driver’s door slammed shut. Both of them looked over to see Luther staring at them, hand on the passenger door handle, one eyebrow raised.

Benji jumped away from Ethan and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Better get in,” Luther said, looking between them, “we’re moving out.”

Benji nodded erratically, not making eye contact until Luther said his name.

“Benji,” he said, “I’m glad you’re alright.”

Benji wanted to apologize again, but he took a deep breath and said, “Thanks, Luther.”

Luther nodded and climbed into the van. Benji opened the sliding side door, but Ethan caught his arm before he could get in. Benji turned back to face him and they were somehow even closer than before, so close that Ethan’s face was just a blur to him, more feeling than image.

Their noses brushed. For a moment Ethan seemed lost for words, and lifted a hand vaguely between them, as though not sure what to do with it. He rested it on the other side of the sliding door, crowding his body into Benji’s space. For a moment they were flush against one another, Ethan looking just barely up at him, his breathing slightly irregular. Benji could feel Luther’s eyes on them in the sideview mirror.

“I’m glad too, Benji,” Ethan said, eyes boring into him, and climbed into the van.

 

 

The London safe-house was just as shitty as Benji remembered, with one dingy bathroom and no food in the kitchen. Luther offered to get take out and they ate it in silence, no one quite sure what to say. Lane had been handed over to the CIA, Ilsa had disappeared into the London night, and the four of them were stuck there until Hunley sent a plane for them the next morning.

After dinner Brandt disappeared into a bedroom, and Luther sat silently in an armchair, shuffling a deck of cards and not asking anyone to play. Benji couldn’t look at Ethan, but he could feel Ethan’s eyes following him around the kitchen as he cleaned up, needing something to do with his hands. He went out onto the balcony and heard Ethan follow him. 

Ethan closed the sliding door and came over to stand beside him, crossing his arms as Benji leaned against the rickety metal railing. Benji breathed in deeply, trying to focus on the taste of the cold air.

“How can I help you?” Ethan said. “What do you need?”

“Mouthwash,” Benji said, automatically. He’d been contemplating it all evening, feeling the aftermath of Vinter on his tongue.

Ethan turned towards him and raised an eyebrow.

“Does mouthwash mean something different in Britain?”

Benji looked at his feet, wishing he could take if back. He didn’t want to talk about this. “Sharp, blue stuff you gargle when you’ve had something foul in your mouth?”

“That’s the stuff,” Ethan said. He leaned against the balcony, keeping Benji in the corner of his eye. “There might be some in the bathroom cabinet.”

Benji nodded quickly and looked out over the city. They were south of the river, the part of the city that was all drab concrete, but tonight it was beautiful.

“It’s funny, I don’t miss London. Don’t even miss England much.”

“I don’t miss home either,” Ethan said. “We see so many places unraveled that I don’t think it’s possible for any of us to feel much for anywhere in particular.”

Benji supposed this made sense. He didn’t long for his apartment back in Langley, didn’t feel any nostalgia for any point in his life. Perhaps in their particular field all of those emotions instead attached themselves to people. Or maybe they’d trained themselves to be rid of them entirely. Ethan turned away from the city lights. Benji could feel his eyes on him, but didn’t turn to look.

“Benji, I know there are CIA therapists for this sort of thing, but I also know you’re a surprising good liar. You don’t have to talk with me about what happened with Lane, but I want to know if you’re okay.”

Benji kept his eyes on the dark street below. It would be so easy to say anything but the truth, to say that he’d been unconscious the whole time, that he’d never even spoken to Lane. But he could feel his heartbeat running away from him at the question, knew that his polygraph would be turning red.

Vinter was dead, Lane was in custody, there was nothing to be afraid of. And it wasn’t them he was afraid of, not exactly. It was what they’d left for him. If he thought it would help, he would take a flamethrower to his temple and blast it all out of his mind. He took a deep breath and released it, shaking, his fingers tapping the balcony like it was keyboard.

“I’m not exactly,” he said. He schooled his face into a matter-of-fact expression and turned to face Ethan. “But I will be. You don’t need to worry about me.”

But Ethan shook his head, and looked him up and down. “Are you in pain? We should have gone straight to the hospital after Hunley, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking—”

“It’s alright, just a few bruises,” Benji said, wondering vaguely if Vinter had left a mark on his face. He hadn’t seen his reflection since then, but he could still feel the ghost of a sting across his cheekbones.

“Just bruises?” Ethan said, eyebrows raised. Benji lifted up his shirt, exposing the dark, green and purple skin across his ribs and abdomen. 

“Holy shit, Benji,” Ethan reached out a hand, but thought better of touching.

Benji pointed at the darkest area, high on his ribcage.

“Your girl really packs a punch.”

Ethan blinked at him. “Ilsa—?”

“She didn’t have a choice,” he said quickly, and dropped the hem of his shirt. “She was still trying to prove her loyalty, she couldn’t help me, couldn’t make him stop, either of them, and Lane just made her watch—”

He cut himself off and looked away before he continued to ramble.

Ethan’s silence turned cold.

“Watch what? Watch them hit you?”

“Nothing,” Benji mumbled, wishing he hadn’t said anything.

“Did something else happen?”

Benji didn’t answer.

“Why do you want mouthwash?”

“I shouldn’t have said that, it was stupid.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing fucking happened,” Benji snapped.

“Well clearly something happened, or you wouldn’t say that.”

“Just, leave it, yeah? It’s over, doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter, anything that happens to you matters.”

“No. It really doesn’t.”

“Benji—” Ethan put a hand on his arm but Benji threw it off, more harshly than he meant to, and took a step back.

“You know what, fine. _Fine_.” For some reason he laughed, humorously. Ethan’s eyes went wide. “You want to know what happened? Lane undid my trousers and whispered dirty things in my ear, and Vinter shoved his cock down my throat. Ilsa couldn’t fucking do anything, and I can still taste a dead man’s come in my mouth.”

Ethan froze completely.

“He—they—he did—?”

Benji looked down at his feet. He didn’t feel like helping Ethan understand this.

“This is my fault,” Ethan said, because of-fucking- _course_. His voice sounded almost panicked. Benji sort of wanted to hit him. Instead he rolled his eyes, angry at everyone and everything.

“No it’s not—”

“It’s my fault they took you,” Ethan said, eyes wild. “Anything that they did to you is my fault too.”

“That logic is completely ridiculous and you know it, what do you mean, it was your fault they took me, how can you possibly think—?”

Ethan grabbed his elbows, eyes wide and unblinking.

“Benji. Lane is practically omniscient, he could see everything, he could see that I—could see that you—”

“That what? All Lane saw was that I was the easiest target.”

Ethan’s hands fell off his elbows and his brow furrowed.

Benji crossed his arms over his chest. “He didn’t need to be fucking omniscient to see that, It’s obvious.”

“This isn’t your fault, Benji.”

Benji didn’t know how to disagree, couldn’t find the words to continue whatever this was.

Ethan shook his head. “You should have left when you had the chance.”

“Oh, fuck off, Ethan, I was doing my job.” This was almost the complete opposite of the truth, but Ethan stopped talking and just stared at him. Benji didn’t know how much more eye contact with Ethan he could take before he did something mad, like hit him, or kiss him, or fall apart completely.

The balcony door slid open and Luther poked his head out. “Sorry to interrupt, but y’all need to shut up and go to sleep.”

They just stared at him for a moment, Benji not quite comprehending, though some distant part of him wanted to laugh.

Luther slid the door open wider and fixed them with a look. “Get in here. I mean it. Ethan, I don’t think you’ve slept in over twenty-four hours, and Benji, I could those damn bruises through the window. Y’all need sleep.”

As though in a daze, Ethan turned and headed inside. Benji followed.

 

 

 

 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: Lane creeps on Benji (just verbally, no contact), and Vinter forces Benji to perform oral sex on him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a ficmix! --
> 
> [Without You I Live Only In The Shadows](https://8tracks.com/pineprincess92/without-you-i-live-only-in-the-shadows-1?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button) from [PinePrincess92](http://8tracks.com/pineprincess92?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button) on [8tracks Radio](https://8tracks.com?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button).

“On my mark,” Ethan said, voice in Benji’s ear as he slouched through an alleyway, hands buried in his bulky coat and the mask he wore pulling slightly on his skin. “A few steps farther—okay, stop.”

Benji slowed to a stop, trying to seem casual as he pulled out his phone and pretended to tap out a text, pretended that he was Roberto Nyburg. Ethan went quiet as he disconnected the security cameras, one by one, so the last thing the current head of the Syndicate would see on them was a henchman of one of his rivals.

This new strategy had been Benji’s idea, thank-you-very-much; heighten the discord, make them turn on each other. After five weeks of Ethan’s favorite method: throwing themselves at each and every problem until someone ended up dead, this seemed a more logical option.

In the aftermath of Lane the team had quickly been reinstated, this time under Hunley. Benji was grateful to him, but also had a sneaking suspicion that Hunley’s decision to join them came from romanticized notions about what they were capable of, rather than from any illusions of their necessity. The IMF was ridiculous, they all knew it. But when it came down to it, there was no other force on the planet quite like them.

With Lane locked up the Syndicate was at war with itself. Benji had cautiously hoped the whole system would fall apart like a house of cards, but he knew the realities even before they were given the assignment. Lane’s absence only meant there was a large, dangerous, well-funded organization with a lot of ambition and no leader. Hunley had sent them to tear it down, piece by piece. They’d been through four new leaders already, only one of them captured by the IMF, the others killed by rival factions of the Syndicate before the team could even come into contact.

It was a revolving door of mobsters and mid-level former agents, after awhile their faces—and motives—blurring together. 

Benji had to admit, he loved it. The constant work meant he never had to go home, the constant danger meant he never had to think about anything that wasn’t happening right in front of him. It hardly mattered to him that they were no closer to toppling the Syndicate than they had been when they started, hardly mattered that the others still gave him sidelong glances and asked him if he was ready for all of this. It was so easy to shrug and crack a joke, to say _‘course_ if they pressed the issue.

He had no idea if they believed him. If he believed himself.

Lately his dreams had been interrupted by explosions. He’d never been a particularly creative dreamer, but now his mundane I-can’t-stop-falling dreams, and surreal, nighttime trips to the bakery often ended in a plummeting in his belly and a blinding white light.

The other thing was… the other thing. This was the name it had taken on in his head. There was the bomb and threat of being blown to bits, and then there was the other thing. Luckily it had not made its way into his dreams as thoroughly as the bomb, but it had found other, waking moments to clamp onto. 

He’d be sitting around the safe house with the others, mind occupied with something entirely unrelated, when a bout of nausea would grip him out of nowhere and he’d rush off to throw up, trying to ignore the concerned looks he received upon return. It was as though no matter what he did he couldn’t rid himself of some part of Vinter, of those few minutes in Lane’s office that had settled somewhere inside him and grown teeth.

Jane had returned to the team, reassigned by Hunley after her CIA gig was over, and Benji couldn’t help but feel like part of his skeleton had returned to him, something vital that kept him solid and upright. They’d been close once, leaning on each other through Hanaway’s death, through Benji’s breakup, through the Hendricks fiasco and Benji’s first kill. She’d never been a hugger, but she held his hands when he told her about Lane, listened through his rambling and self-deprecation. He preferred this, her big eyes and soft hands, to any more obvious forms of comfort.

As for the others, he couldn’t seem to talk about much of anything, regardless of their kind words and looks of concern.

“All set,” Ethan said over the headset. Benji pushed off from the wall, as casually as he could manage, and kept walking.

They met at the car and drove away in silence, the glue pulling at Benji’s beard as he pulled off the mask. 

“Not as fun as they look, are they?” Ethan said, smirking from the driver’s seat. It was not the first time he had worn a mask, but Ethan couldn’t seem to let go of Benji’s old rookie obsession with them.

“Oh, I dunno,” Benji said, lightly. “I’m starting to like feeling like Hannibal Lector’s just skinned a a silicon mannequin. A rather ugly mannequin, at that.”

Ethan laughed, and Benji rubbed his face, wincing as he pulled strands of glue out of his beard.

“Told you to shave before putting that thing on,” Ethan said.

Benji could feel his eyes on him, knew he was smiling, but he stayed facing ahead, watching the road.

“I can’t possibly shave. How would anyone take me seriously as a super-secret agent?” he deadpanned, and Ethan laughed again.

“You could though, if you wanted to.” Ethan cleared his throat and turned back to the road. “I mean, you look great either way—”

Benji’s pocket buzzed. 

He didn’t need to look at the number to know the message was from Ilsa. There were no words, just two pictures, and his blood ran cold when he opened them. The two other men in Lane’s office, that had stood silently on either side of the door. They were nondescript enough that he might not have recognized them if their faces hadn’t been burned into his memory along with everything else from that goddam room. One had been shot cleanly through the forehead, his eyes open and staring, his face haloed in blood. The other had a knife protruding from his throat, eyes closed, tongue hanging out obscenely. He clicked the screen off and shoved his phone back in his pocket.

He had not heard from Ilsa since that night, neither, he assumed, had anyone else. He didn’t know what to do, how to feel about the pictures now burning a hole in him. He could only assume this was her form of an apology for what had happened, though of course he didn’t blame her for any of it.

Was he happy they were dead? He had no idea. He’d spent so much time recently examining his own psyche that he’d gone a bit numb to his own emotions and reactions, calloused like a finger pricked too many times.

“Benji,” Ethan said, glancing at him. “Are you—?”

“Ethan—” Benji said sharply, something catching his attention in his sideview mirror. Two motorbikes screeched out of an alleyway behind them, handguns at the ready.

“Hang on,” Ethan said, demeanor flipping instantly, and gunned it.

Benji ducked and covered his head automatically at the sound of gunfire, and Ethan took a sharp left. The car careened, two-wheeled into a narrow alley and Benji realized he was shouting at Ethan to _give a bloke some warning when you’re gonna play bloody Fast and Furious!_ not because he thought Ethan ever would, but because Pop Culture was his go-to high-stress defense mechanism.

“Just need to get closer to downtown,” Ethan said, more to himself than to Benji. “These guys don’t have the kind of political backing that Lane did, they won’t be confident enough to chase us through Bratislava in full view of the police. Damn it!” He hit the palm of his hand on the steering wheel. “We can’t afford for them to know we were here.”

“Let’s just hope they still think it was Nyburg and Stinson out here up to no good,” Benji said, and pulled out the handgun he had hidden in the holster beneath his oversized coat. He went to roll down the window—really? manual crank at a time like this?—but the back window shattered, so he whirled around and took aim from there instead. He counted his heartbeats as he fired three times, one cracking the bike’s mirror and another disappearing between the two of them. The third grazed a biker’s arm, and he skidded for a moment, falling behind the other and holding a hand to the wound.

“Damn!”

“It was a nice shot,” Ethan said, steering the car over a pile of wet cardboard and back onto a real road. The bikers followed.

“Hardly,” Benji growled, taking aim again. “Clearly need more range time and less _Halo_ time.”

Ethan’s reply was drowned out by another burst of gunfire, and just as Ethan made another hair-pinned turn and Benji ducked behind the passenger seat, the car fell off balance and alarms sounded.

“Shit—!”

A bullet had blown the back right tire and they were racing along on the steel frame, the car screeching, sparks flying in the rearview mirror.

“Shitshitshit!” Benji shouted, just as Ethan said, more calmly than the situation warranted, “Gonna have to bail. Take off the coat and put your phone somewhere safe. Oh, and rip up that mask, don’t want them to find it if they drag the car out.”

They skidded onto a main road that headed towards the Danube river, the bikers joined by two more that came from the opposite direction and flipped around to meet them. Backup.

“Drag the car out of what?!” Benji shouted, though he had a sinking feeling he knew exactly what Ethan had planned. Sure enough, instead of heading for the bridge, Ethan left the road completely, shot through a parking lot and straight at the twenty foot drop into the river. The gunfire started again, hitting the bumper and shattering their mirrors, as the bikers stopped behind them. In the split second before the car went over, Benji looked at Ethan, at his clenched jaw and wild determination, and shoved his feet up on the dashboard to brace for impact.

As always, if Ethan trusted their chances, Benji would too.

The water felt like a brick wall, and with half their windows shattered they sunk quickly, water cascading heavily over Benji’s lap, icy cold despite the warm August night.

“Where do we—?” he began, unbuckling his seatbelt and throwing off the bulking coat.

Ethan’s hand landed on his shoulder. It was very dark, but Benji could just see the shine of his eyes.

“Head for the ledge under the bridge.” 

They both took a final gasp of air and let the water engulf them. 

Benji could only hope that the bikers had given up, because he had no idea where they’d gone or if they would try to shoot into the water. He could only follow Ethan, half-blind, through the dark water and hope they were heading in the right direction.

They emerged under the bridge and swam toward a service ladder out of the river and onto the walking ledge beneath the overhang of the road. Benji kept an eye out for the gunmen, but could see only concerned pedestrians gathered around the broken railing above. Police sirens whirled in the distance.

The ladder was slippery and Ethan took Benji’s hand to help him past the last rung.

“Need to get out of sight,” Benji said, looking around when he stumbled onto the stone walkway. “They’ll be searching the area and we’re clearly soaked—”

Ethan leaned against the smooth, concrete wall, eyes wide and unfocused. “There’s a service tunnel not far from here, we can take that to the subway and walk the rest of the way,” he said as though in a trance. He held up a hand. “I’m sorry, I need a minute.” 

Ethan was breathing hard in a way that Benji realized was not from exertion. Ethan barely got winded after a sprint through city streets, it made no sense for him to sound like that from less than two minutes under water. Benji approached, cautiously.

“Ethan—are you—?”

“I’m okay, just—”

Benji stopped in front of him, hands hovering, unsure what he should do. Ethan kept his hand held up and Benji couldn’t tell if it meant _don’t come any closer,_ or _don’t leave_.

His head hung, staring at the ground, and the hand found Benji’s shoulder, warm somehow despite the freezing water. It inched up toward the curve of his neck and clung there, thumb digging into his throat. It took him a second to realize Ethan wanted to feel his pulse.

“You know,” Ethan said, trying to control his breathing, “there was a moment—in that tank in Morocco—when I thought I was too late.”

“Too late for what?” Benji said, feeling the adrenaline, the fear, the cold slip away momentarily as he watched Ethan struggle for words, as he felt his blood pumping under Ethan’s thumb. He’d seen Ethan in every imaginable state—shock, confusion, fury, actual _death_ for fuck’s sake—but it had never before felt quite so focused on him, on Benji, and somehow he guessed Ethan’s next word before he said it.

“For you.”

Ethan looked up at him, half his face in shadow.

“Too late to stop you being apprehended. I kept hearing your voice in my head telling me what would happen if I failed. You said _I’m dead, I’m dead,_ over and over again.”

Benji shook his head, crossed his arms so his hands wouldn’t do anything stupid. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have put more pressure on you, I shouldn’t have said—”

“If it wasn’t that, it would have been something else,” Ethan said. His hand fell back to his shoulder and squeezed. “It’s not your fault.”

Ethan looked at him, his hair soaked and black, a drop of water hanging off his chin, and Benji felt suddenly solid, necessary. The hand on his shoulder felt weighty somehow, encompassing like a heavy blanket in winter. All he wanted to do was reach out and brush away the bead of water lingering on Ethan’s bottom lip, and he clamped his hands tighter under his arms to stop himself.

But one hand found its way to Ethan’s outstretched wrist and held it tightly, wondering if this gesture was for Ethan or for himself. It would be so easy to pull Ethan’s hand from his shoulder and take it in his own.

The sirens were getting closer.

“Ethan, we have to move.”

“I know, I know. I’m alright,” Ethan said, taking a long, deep breath. His hand fell off Benji’s shoulder, their fingers grazing as he pulled away. 

He pushed himself off the wall and they headed for the service tunnel.

 

By the time they made it back to the safe-house their takeout was cold and the others were pale with worry. Luther sat in an arm chair with his head in his hands, Brandt paced around the room, babbling under his breath about what could have gone wrong, and Jane stood like a statue in front of the window like they might appear in the sky. In the moment it took them to look over at the sound of the door opening, the few seconds it took for the worry to drain from their faces, Benji imagined what they might feel if he and Ethan hadn’t returned. He’d spent many a night in a similar position, waiting on a missing team member—usually Ethan—to reappear, trying to hold onto any hope he could, but it had never quite occurred to him that others might do the same for him.

“Where the hell have you been?!” Brandt launched his inquisition immediately, and Ethan shot Benji a look that clearly said, _I’ll handle it._

Benji made quick eye-contact with each of them, Brandt diffusing his anxiety with fury, Luther nodding and slipping back to his usual cool self. Jane’s face screwed up for just a moment before she ironed out her expression and gave him a tight smile. He joined her by the window, looking out at the city lights. Even as Ethan explained their delay, Benji could feel his eyes on his back.

 

They would be in Bratislava for two more days so Benji and Jane went to buy frozen food to stock up the safe house, careful to look as bland and uninteresting as possible. There was no telling where the Syndicate would be looking for them. 

It was hopelessly boring to know that not even actual secret agents could avoid doing the shopping.

Benji’s pocket buzzed and, upon opening it, the full force of Ilsa’s texts hit him again. He hadn’t thought about it since receiving them the night before. He stopped dead in the canned veggies aisle, Jane making a soft _oof_ noise when she walked into his back.

“Benji?” She circled around to look at him, but he found it hard to meet her big, searching eyes.

“I—it’s fine,” he said. “I just remembered. Ilsa sent me some pictures—” he fumbled with his phone but Jane laid a hand on his and glanced around.

“Come on, you can show me outside.”

Out in the car they sat in silence while Benji stared at the two pictures in his inbox. After a moment he handed the phone over to Jane. Her brow furrowed.

“Who are these men?”

“They were the guards Lane had in his office that day,” he said, and he knew right away that Jane knew which office, which day.

Jane was quiet, examining the pictures.

“I think it’s Ilsa’s apology for not stepping in,” Benji said. “I think this is her bizarre way of dealing with the whole thing. She’s a very intense person.”

“Damn,” Jane said. “She sounds…”

“Totally barmy?”

“Like I should meet her,” Jane said, with a sly grin.

Benji shot her a side-eyed smile. It had taken Jane years after Hanaway to get to a point of even joking about seeing anyone new, though of course he knew she was kidding. Jane was an old-fashioned romantic, she liked passionate, whirlwind affairs with people she crashed into—sometimes physically. She didn’t care for set-ups. Though all bets were off if she and Ilsa ever met organically. Benji could imagine them being a particularly formidable pair.

“Eh, looking beyond the concerning fact that you’re turned on by murder and mayhem, I’m pretty sure she’s got a thing with Ethan,” Benji said, looking away.

“Oh please, don’t pretend you’re not the same way.” She handed the phone back. “And what does that mean, she’s got a _thing_ with Ethan?”

“I dunno, they were… close during the whole Morocco disaster.”

“Weren’t you in Morocco for like three days?”

“It was a close three days.”

She laughed.

“ _And,_ ” he said, because he hadn’t even reached the ridiculous part yet. “In the airport just before I got capital-T ‘Taken,’ she asked Ethan to run away with her so they wouldn’t have to deal with Lane. He maintains she just did it to distract him from said ‘Taking,’ but I think there was some truth there, they were so fucking flirty the whole time in that safe house in Morocco—” 

“You’re jealous.” Jane stared at him, grinning.

Benji pretended to be completely offended for a moment, then gave up the act.

“No! Well, I dunno. It’s complicated.”

“It always is.”

“I mean, it’s _Ethan,_ ” he said, and Jane nodded, doing her best not to roll her eyes at Benji’s Ethan-fixation she’d been witness to for the last ten years. Benji tried not to be embarrassed. “So obviously I have… thoughts. But I guess I’ve never seen him like that with anyone before. I really only knew Julia at the end of their relationship, and since then I haven’t seen him flirt with anyone else. I guess it threw me a little, yeah.”

“You might not have seen him flirt with anyone, but the rest of us have been watching him flirt with you for about a decade.”

Benji’s face went scarlet. They’d had this conversation a hundred times and he wished she would stop saying things like this. She only did it to make him feel better, and he was tired of the pangs of hope those words gave him.

He shook his head.

“He doesn’t—he’s not—”

“Benji, you don’t know what Ethan _is_ or _isn’t_ because you won’t be honest with him, maybe if you just—” she trailed off in frustration. They’d had this conversation a hundred times as well.

“Anyway,” she said. “What are you gonna do about the texts? Are you gonna reply?”

“How does one reply to two pictures of murdered bodies? Should I just hit with her a ‘cheers, mate’ and call it good?”

Jane giggled and looked over at him. 

“I missed you, Benji, no one else can make me laugh. I’m glad you’re not dead.”

He smiled back at her. “Well I can’t make anyone else laugh, so I’m glad you’re not dead too.”

 

The new safe house in Ostrava was significantly smaller than the last, and despite their constant rotation of recon and surveillance, they were tripping over each other.

“I’m just saying, how hard would it be to fund two safe houses?” Brandt had complained the night before.

“Somewhere like Ostrava? Unlikely,” Luther said. 

Benji wouldn’t mind it so much—the tall, strange structure of the place, like the apartment had been formed out of the rejected spaces of other dwellings, or the tiny bathroom sequestered alone on the third floor, or the too-few beds that had necessitated Ethan sleeping on a cot in the living room—if not for Brandt and Luther’s constant bickering. 

Benji had never known Luther to get irritable with anyone, but Brandt apparently had a special ability to get under his skin. The rest of them tried their best to keep the two of them apart—Luther sequestered in the one closet-like bedroom, while Benji and Jane shared the larger one with Brandt. But in such close quarters interactions between them were inevitable.

For his own sanity, Benji was trying his best to avoid Ethan. He knew it was hardly fair to Ethan that Benji couldn’t keep himself together in his presence, but it was true. Being stuck in the tiny apartment while Ethan sprawled on his cot reading, while he hummed while making food, while he used nearly every piece of furniture available to exercise with—it was far too close to the sappy little domestic daydreams Benji used to dwell on while stuck behind a desk.

And yet he knew he was leaning on Ethan, on this stupid, impossible crush, because daydreaming about Ethan was better than letting his mind wander to darker places. Jane would probably say that he needed comfort after what had happened, something beyond his talks with her and the brief moments his limbs accidentally touched hers under the covers of the bed they had to share—neither of them were particularly touchy people, not like Ethan was. But the last thing he wanted was for Ethan to suspect there was something more, inappropriately more, to his feelings. Any comfort he may or may not need, he would just have to provide for himself.

As such, Benji had taken to wearing headphones in the safe house every moment that he could to try to keep his mind occupied and out of Ethan’s way, carving his own small private area out of the classics. Sometimes Brandt rolled his eyes when it took Benji a moment to disconnect in order to hear him, but mostly they understood—they all had their own methods of dealing with the situation at hand.

Benji blasted “La Cathédrale Engloutie” as loudly as safety permitted (he was a spy after all, and couldn’t afford to dull his hearing, even for Debussy) and got to work on hacking the emails of Petar Krysic, the man currently heading the Syndicate. So far he had proved himself to be the opposite of Lane; vicious, sloppy, messily violent. Krysic’s emails were proving difficult not because of any ingenuity on his part, but because he was so disorganized he had six different, unconnected accounts that he used seemingly at random. 

Benji had been given two tasks by Hunley, speaking through Brandt: find out if he and Ethan had been made during their car chase or if Krysic still believed he was dealing with an internal coup, and finding out all he could about Krysic’s finances, and if there was any way to break into his records during the soiree that was happening in two nights; the reason they were in fucking Ostrava in the first place.

The hours disappeared, Benji barely noticed the lengthening of shadows as he delved deeper and deeper into Krysic’s messages, mentally translating from Serbian. He didn’t notice the shadow over his screen until a hand squeezed his arm. He jumped, nearly dislodging his laptop and jerking the noise-cancelling headphones off his ears.

“—want anything?”

Reality returned slowly as Benji looked up at Ethan standing over him, hand heavy on his shoulder. He was wearing an undershirt and workout shorts, was just sweaty enough to radiate heat from his exposed skin. Benji mentally shook himself, unsure for a moment that he hadn’t slipped into a sexy fever dream brought on by insomnia and Debussy’s “Nuages.”

“Sorry?”

Ethan smiled.

“I just wanted to see if you were okay, you were mumbling in Serbian and kind of fidgeting.”

Benji forced his eyes to stay fixed on Ethan’s face. In his peripheral he could see a pull-up bar attached to the doorframe into the tiny kitchen and he flushed, wondering how long Ethan had been there. He glanced around the rest of the living room. They were alone.

“Luther’s been sleeping since he got back this afternoon, Jane and Brandt are on recon,” Ethan said, answering Benji’s question before he asked.

“Oh, um. Yeah,” Benji said, blinking, feeling like he’d just been yanked out of another world. “Sorry, I just get a little sucked in, don’t realize when I’m being weird.” He set down the laptop and turned around to fully look at Ethan, who straightened up and crossed his arms. Benji had to look away.

“Not weird, I just got worried about you after awhile. It’s getting dark in here.”

Benji rubbed the back of his neck and stretched, feeling a pop in his back. “I suppose I could use a break.”

“Is your neck hurting you?” Ethan said, face falling into sincere concern that might look ridiculous on anyone else.

“Oh—no, it’s fine, side-effects of staring down at a screen for too long I suppose—”

But Ethan was looming toward him and Benji went wide-eyed as a hand squeezed the back of his neck.

“Here—” Ethan said, circling around behind his chair and squeezing his shoulders. Benji froze. He must be dreaming, because was Ethan actually going to massage his back—? 

“This okay?” Ethan said. 

So yes, yes he was.

“Fine,” Benji said, his voice a half octave higher than normal.

His hands were warmer than they had any right to be and Benji couldn’t help but close his eyes and lean into them. He thought suddenly back to what Ethan had told him after they’d climbed out of the freezing river, something he hadn’t quite let himself remember. Ethan had been worried for _him,_ had nearly drowned to save _him_ … But he couldn’t examine that too closely, not with Ethan’s thumbs digging into the tight muscles around his neck.

“Feel better?” Ethan said, and Benji couldn’t handle anything more than a vague, _mhmm,_ knowing his voice was just on the edge of a groan.

His mind wandered, imagining that this was his reality all the time, Ethan’s hands on him, Ethan holding him up when he needed it most. Benji couldn’t remember the last time he’d been touched like this and his reaction was frankly embarrassing—he felt like his body was remembering that it was alive.

Ethan squeezed down his arms, dug his thumbs into the knots of muscle between his shoulder blades, and Benji pictured how this might go if they were in the currently unoccupied bedroom, if Benji had the courage to do anything more than sit there and suppress a moan, if, if, if.

Maybe he would take off the oversized jumper he had thrown on that morning in order to give Ethan better access to his skin. Maybe he’d lay on the bed, Ethan’s weight bearing down on him, hands massaging him into the mattress. Maybe Ethan would tangle a hand in his hair and pull just enough to make him feel it. Maybe he’d lean down and plant a kiss on the back of his neck, or behind one ear.

He jerked suddenly out of Ethan’s grip and leaned forward. His head fell into his hands. If he let Ethan touch him for another second he knew he would cry, or profess his love, or do something equally stupid.

“I’m sorry—did I—?” Ethan stuttered, surprised.

Benji sighed, frustrated, into his hands.

“No, no, it’s not you—I’m sorry, Ethan—I think I’m going a bit mad trapped in this place. I get…jumpy sometimes.”

He could feel Ethan’s eyes on him, his concern warming the back of his neck.

“Understandable,” he said, cautiously.

Benji sat up, just as abruptly, determined suddenly to act normal, to not freak out. He turned to face Ethan, whose hands were held out slightly like Benji was a startled animal.

“I’m sorry, Benji, I shouldn’t have done that, I should have thought about…well, with everything that happened…”

“What, with Lane?”

Ethan didn’t know where to look. “Well, yeah—”

Benji shook his head quickly.

“No, believe me, I was _not_ thinking about Lane,” he said, and immediately cringed because somehow that had sounded suggestive—had he meant that to sound suggestive? 

Even though Ethan’s face was solemn, concerned, there was a glint in his eye that had picked up on Benji’s emphasis on _not_. He was kind enough not to ask the question that stretched out between them for the rest of the evening. _So what were you thinking about?_

 

Benji woke from another nightmare, a new one this time, with bullets that became hands and knives that became teeth. Jane slept soundly on the other side of the queen bed they shared, her body turned to face the gray pre-dawn outside the window. The sleeping arrangement made the most sense—Luther snored, Brandt kicked, and Ethan was a martyr who volunteered to sleep on an army issue camp bed—but Benji had to wonder what the others thought of him kipping with Jane.

He crept out of the room in the dark so as not to wake her or Brandt—who had star-fished in his tangle of sheet, limbs thrown at odd angles—and was surprised to see Ethan sitting at the kitchen table with a battered copy of _L’Étranger_ in the original French. Benji, too tired to feel awkward, sat down heavily on the other side of the table, feeling Ethan’s acknowledgement though he didn’t look up from the book. 

“I’ve read that,” Benji said, voice croaky with sleep.

“I know,” Ethan said, glancing over the top of the cover. “You recommended it to me seven years ago. Between you and Luther I’ve got a reading list that will last me a lifetime.”

“I only ever see you reading the classics.”

Ethan shrugged and smiled.

“Anything written after 1980 makes me anxious. It’s too close to now.”

Benji wasn’t sure he understood, but nodded. Ethan put down the book on the table, its spine up like a little house.

“Can’t sleep?” he said.

“I could ask you the same.”

Ethan nodded and glanced toward the window. He drummed his fingers on the spine of the book.

“Some nights I can’t seem to get more than three or four hours,” he said. “I just wake up in the middle of the night and that’s it, I’m up for the day.”

Benji understood. Or maybe he was jealous. At this point if he could avoid sleep altogether he would.

“Nightmare?” Ethan said, quietly, and Benji nodded, looking down at his hands.

“Most of the time I just lay there and listen to Jane and Brandt breath and wait for the sun to come up if I can’t doze off again. But… I don’t know. This one was different. I couldn’t stay in that bed any longer.”

He could feel Ethan watching him, and sure enough when he glanced up their eyes met.

“Your hair looks nice like that,” Ethan said.

“What, unkempt?” Benji said. His hand flew up to flatten down whatever mess was happening on top of his head, but Ethan put a hand gently on his forearm, guiding him back down to the table. His hands stayed there, warm on Benji’s wrist and Ethan just looked at him, silent. Maybe, like Benji, he was too tired for words, tired beyond sleep, tired in his bones. His eyes were gray in the light from the window, and for the first time in a long time Benji wondered if maybe there was something there after all, something he’d never let himself look for. Maybe Jane was right and he should just tell Ethan, just get the truth out there and let him decide what to do with it.

“Want to go for a walk?” Ethan said. He looked sad, his hand still heavy on Benji’s wrist.

Benji nodded.

Ethan was already dressed, and Benji threw a coat on over his t-shirt and track bottoms.

 

“How are the emails?” Ethan said when they were a block away and strolling through the empty streets, hands hidden in pockets. They stuck to alleys and side streets instinctively. It was not busy enough yet on the main roads to not draw attention from the other few passersby.

Benji shook his head.

“Fucking nightmare,” he said. “I’m starting to think he’ll just collapse the Syndicate with the sheer force of his incompetence. I’d honestly rather deal with a genius mastermind at this point, at least they would presumably know how to use basic mechanisms of communication.”

Ethan chuckled. 

“I’ve gotten through most of it, but I haven’t found much of anything. I’m not sure there’s much there but data—transport, names, things like that.”

“Which we already know,” Ethan said.

“Exactly.”

The longer they walked, the more lights the saw switch on in the backrooms of shops.

“We’ve got feelers out,” Ethan said. “We’re doing recon, we’ve placed bugs, we’ve got informers, something will turn up. ”

Benji found himself nodding, but as the sun just touched the horizon he had a strange moment of clarity, as though he was looking at his life through the eyes of a younger self.

They were hoping they’d find out enough about the inner-workings of a mansion belonging to the leader of an international terror organization to know how to break in and steal encrypted financial records.  They were talking about doing something death-defyingly dangerous in the same casual way that Benji used to wonder what his work schedule would be like in two week’s time. Sometimes, even six years into field work, his life baffled him.

They strolled in companionable silence as the city woke up, Ethan periodically breaking it to ask after Luther’s opinions on _L’Étranger._ As far as Benji knew Luther was neutral towards Camus in general, but he privately thought it was a bit adorable how transparent Ethan was in his fear of disappointing Luther, even over something like literary analysis. Benji understood—Luther was the best of them. It was difficult not to crave his approval.

“So,” Ethan started, as they rounded a corner onto a main drag, both sensing it was now busy enough to get adequately lost in a crowd. Benji knew that he would not want to talk about whatever Ethan was about to say. There was something mischievous in his tone of voice that sounded like a red flag. 

“So you and Carter,” Ethan said.

Benji looked over at him, surprised. “Jane? What about her?”

Ethan shrugged, glancing at Benji. “I dunno…you seem close.”

“We’ve always been close.”

“Closer, I mean. Lately.”

“Yeah, well. Y’know. We spend our days playing _Goldeneye_ and trying not to get shot. It’s nice to have people to talk to.”

They crossed a street in silence, though Benji could feel Ethan working through what to say next.

“You know you can trust me, right?” he said. “I know there are rules about relationships between agents, but you can tell me anything.”

Something clicked in Benji’s mind.

“Wait, you think Jane and I are together? Secretly?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Of course not!” Benji spluttered, stopping on the sidewalk for a moment and staring at Ethan in astonishment. But the flow of pedestrian traffic was too heavy and they had to keep moving, Ethan speeding up and leading Benji toward a less crowded street.

“Why of course not?” he said, when they made it through the throng.

“Well, first off she’s—” Benji made a vague gesture upward that he thought could roughly translate to _a goddess._ “And I’m—” he gestured to himself, making a face that said something to the effect of _a pasty, dweeby, tech troll._

Something slackened in Ethan’s face, like he was suddenly looking at a sick puppy. “Benji, that’s not at all true _,_ if you’re interested in her I think—”

But Benji waved his hands to shush him, pulse picking up.

“Secondly,” he started, while some part of him asked _you’re really gonna do this now?_ He took a breath, watching his feet. “Ethan, when have you ever seen me interested in a woman?”

He could feel the sick puppy look replaced with confusion.

“Benji, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you interested in anyone! You don’t tell anyone anything about your personal life, so I’m just left to guess at what you being interested looks like. And you two seem so in-sync I just wondered if maybe—”

“Well, you’re wrong. I mean, Jane is brilliant and beautiful but… I’m not interested. I’m not interested in women, I mean.” He looked away, but could still see Ethan blinking quickly out of the corner of his eye as they headed down a wide walkway alongside a park.

“So, are you interested in—?”

“Yeah, I-I—I’m gay, alright?”

He wanted to squeeze his eyes shut so he wouldn’t be tempted to meet Ethan’s gaze. He couldn’t look at him right now, and couldn’t read his silence. After a moment he sputtered in shock and confusion and stopped walking completely. Benji stopped as well and turned to face him.

“How—Benji, how did I not know this? I’ve known you for ten years!” Ethan seemed more baffled than, say, repulsed, which made Benji’s heart untangle from itself slightly. But he still sighed and crossed his arms, already exhausted by this conversation.

“I dunno, Ethan,” he said, sitting down heavily on a park bench. He did not feel at all like remaining stationary at the moment, but Ethan was staring at him so openly, he wasn’t sure what else to do. “I guess I’m just sort of private about my personal life.”

Ethan sat down next to him. It seemed to take him a moment to work through his thoughts.

“Do the others know?”

“Only Jane.”

Ethan nodded, staring blankly around them like he did when he was absorbing new information.

“I’m sorry,” he said, hesitant, his face drawn in confusion. “Did you think that I… Do you not trust me? Have I done anything to make you think I wouldn’t—”

Benji half-rolled his eyes.

“God, Ethan, it’s nothing like that, it’s not that I don’t trust you…” he trailed off, because when it came down to it, he wasn’t sure it was so easy to explain. “I suppose, well, it wasn’t exactly welcome news to my parents, and I think ever since I’ve been… hesitant to make it common knowledge. Unsure what the reaction would be, y’know?”

Ethan looked at him, and Benji couldn’t quite identify the expression pulling on his features.

“I’m sorry, Benji, that’s horrible to have to deal with,” he said, shaking his head a bit. “But I can promise you that no one on the team—no one that I know of in the entire IMF, even—would have any problem—”

“You can’t know that, Ethan. People get dodgy about things like this. You think you know them, and then once they know you’re into blokes they get weird and distant and act like you’re the one that’s changed. Believe me, telling people at work is a fucking minefield.”

“So what, we’re ‘work’ friends? You don’t trust me enough to—”

Benji fixed him with a look and crossed his arms. Ethan took a breath and put up his hands in defeat.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, obviously it’s your decision to tell whoever you want to tell, and of course I respect that.” He shook his head. “Sorry.”

Benji sighed, feeling guilty for making Ethan feel guilty. His face was burning, still not quite sure this conversation was really happening.

“Ethan… I suppose I didn’t tell you because… well, I’ve been _looking_ at you for years, and I didn’t want you to suddenly be uncomfortable with me. With us. I didn’t want anything to change.”

Ethan absorbed this for a moment, then gave him a look that Benji could only interpret as sly. “You’ve been _looking_ at me—”

“Yeah, looking, like, y’know. _Looking._ I’m sorry, I can’t help it.”

“Don’t be sorry. Benji… in all honesty, I’ve been looking at you too.”

“Please don’t try to make me feel better.”

“I’m not! I mean, I wouldn’t just say that without meaning it, I—”

He was cut off by the chirp of his ringtone. He answered immediately.

“Went for a walk,” he said after a moment and Benji knew it was Brandt. Ethan nodded and rolled his eyes. “Got it. Be back in five.” He hung up.

“Brandt wants us back?” Benji said, eager to end the conversation that was threatening him with heart palpitations. 

“Luther’s bug on Melnyk’s phone worked and Brandt needs us to try to confirm some of the info they got off it.”

Ethan hesitated, but Benji leapt up from the bench, nodding. “He say anything else? What did they get?”

They walked back quickly, Benji keeping the conversation firmly on the mission, ignoring the indecipherable looks Ethan kept throwing in his direction.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to post!! Thanks for reading <3

“Okay, team.”

Brandt stood in front of them in the cramped living room, hands on his hips, clearing enjoying being so obviously in charge. All Benji really wanted to do was remind him that he was basically Hunley’s puppet, but the more mature part of his brain understood that this would accomplish nothing productive.

“Alright,” he jumped in instead. “Let’s not do the whole ‘go over it one more time’ thing, we’ve all got it, Brandt.”

“Standard procedure, Dunn,” Brandt shot back with a smile. “Let’s go over this thing one more time. Everyone, give me your starting positions.”

Benji rolled his eyes and pulled at the neck of his tux. He leaned against the wall beside the couch and signed more dramatically than was necessary.

“Jane and I will enter through the kitchen, dressed as the strangely glamorous wait staff,” he said. He’d been expecting a cheap suit at best, but according to Brandt’s intel, Krysic wanted his staff just as made up as his guests. The soiree they’d be crashing was clearly his attempt to prove to high society and the local government that he belonged among them.

Jane wore a simple but clearly expensive black dress, complete with a string of pearls. When Brandt had initially suggested this route, she’d asked if perhaps she shouldn’t be dressed more intriguingly if she was going to ‘distract’ Krysic for the time it took Benji to break into his office and steal financial records.

“Listen,” Brandt had said, “these guys aren’t mysterious evil geniuses, this isn’t Lane we’re dealing with here. This guy might as well be one of his grunts. Guys like him aren’t looking for intrigue. They’re looking for a pretty girl in a subordinate position they can take advantage of.”

Benji shook his head a bit, trying to throw the thought out of his head. It put him in mind of dark things, made him want to be sick again.

Brandt nodded and continued with the plan. “I pull around to the alleyway behind the mansion, on the edge of their surveillance so they’ll definitely see me. They’ll send someone after me and I’ll lead them on a partially choreographed goose chase.”

“Meanwhile, I’m in the warehouse three blocks away tapped into the mansion’s security,” Luther said, grinning.

“I come in through the main entrance,” Ethan said, shuffling in his black Prada shoes. “Making sure the cameras and Krysic see my face.”

Turned out they had been seen during their car chase, but the Syndicate seemed only to have discovered Ethan’s identity, and they were fully expecting him to make an appearance at the mansion that evening. So, he was to be the decoy. It was clearly not a position he was comfortable with.

“Will, I’m not sure about this, y’know it’s not too late for a disguise, we could—”

“Ethan, we’ve been over this, if you don’t show up they’ll be looking more closely at everyone else in there.”

“I’ll make sure I’m near Krysic as often as possible,” Jane said. “Hopefully within an hour or so he’ll be drunk and interested enough for me to either steal his phone or just keep him from checking it.”

Krysic seemed to like to believe he could micromanage every part of the Syndicate and his household, down to monitoring security. He received alerts on his phone for every staff shift change and bird landing on a windowsill—if Jane set off a motion sensor, he would know immediately.

“Benji will then climb on top of the elevator, avoid the cameras, get up to the fourth floor and pick the lock to the—”

“Hang on,” Ethan interrupted, arms crossed. “Benji is doing what?”

“Yeah, I just figured it out this afternoon,” Brandt said. “It’s really the only way to get up there without crawling through the ducts or something ridiculous, and they’ve got too many cameras to just use the elevator normally—”

“Are you sure Luther will have control over the elevator from the van?”

Brandt gave Ethan a weird look. “Of course, Ethan, that’s part of what I’ve been setting up the last few days.”

“Ethan, it’ll be fine. Promise.” Luther gave Ethan a meaningful look, and Ethan looked down at his feet.

“Alright,” Brandt continued, unsure. “Once Benji has the disk, Ethan will start some sort of confrontation with Krysic—I leave the details in your capable hands—leaving Benji and Jane free to just walk out the kitchen doors and be picked up by Luther. Questions?”

The man should be teacher, Benji thought, watching the way Brandt’s face stayed energetic and inquisitive even in the face of apathetic stares.

“Okay, let’s roll out!”

 

After Jane and Benji were hurriedly introduced as the temporary help, they made their way into the massive ballroom, carrying trays of some kind of tiny and intricately designed deviled eggs. The two of them locked eyes one last time before parting ways, Jane to find Krysic, Benji to act the part of the invisible waiter until it was go time. He went over his own part in this once more, visualizing the lock he’d need to get past, the password he’d input into Krysic’s computer after Jane tapped it to him over their linked digital watches.

Luther would bypass the alarm system, but it was up to Benji to get past or take out any guards that were up on the fourth floor. The entire operation shouldn’t take him more than three minutes, so he wasn’t terribly worried about anyone stumbling upon knocked out bodies, but still. It wasn’t often he played Ethan’s role during a mission like this. It was hard not to be nervous.

Benji spotted Krysic across the ballroom, accidentally locking eyes with him. He was older than Benji had assumed from his pictures and grainy surveillance footage, and there was a cruel twist to his features that, while expected, still made his stomach clench in worry for what Jane was heading into. Krysic gave him a once-over, eyes narrowing, and Benji looked quickly away. If he was made this would fall apart before it had even begun. If they found the remains of the mask in the river, if they’d gotten even a scrap of information about him, it could all be over. What if he’d been seen walking with Ethan early that morning? Why had they been so stupid to go out in public—?

He and Ethan had barely spoken since their conversation, Benji carefully avoiding his eyes, trying to ignore what felt like waves of curiosity coming from Ethan. He didn’t want to feel like an oddity for closer inspection, not by Ethan. He didn’t want to feel his own curiosity either, for what Ethan would do with this information. It was all out there now, well, some of it was, but if Ethan wanted to he could easily put two and two together and—and what? Never speak to Benji again? Become unbearable awkward around him? Pretend like nothing was different? Or…

Benji gave himself a mental slap. There was no “or.” The “or” was not a real option.

“Alright team,” Brandt said in his ear. “Everyone in position?”

They counted off, Benji moving his mouth as little a possible as he moved carefully through the crowd with his tray. Ethan entered the hall through the front doors and Krysic practically scowled. Benji held his breath for a moment, sure that Ethan was about to be dragged away and tortured, but Brandt’s intel had been good. Krysic wouldn’t do anything with this many important people around. He wanted to be high-class, wanted to be Lane. He’d wait and see what Ethan did and try to outsmart him.

 

It was going on eight o’clock when Jane’s voice piped through Benji’s headset. He handed a champagne glass to an overly-bejeweled woman and tried not to look like he was listening to something else.

“Yeah, we’ve got a problem,” Jane said in his ear. “This isn’t going to work.”

“What, is he not interested?” Brandt said, as though this was impossible.

“Not even a bit.”

“Racist?” Luther piped in over the headset.

“No…Well maybe, but that’s not the problem.”

“Then what’s the problem, Carter?” Ethan said, impatience straining his voice. Benji spotted him near the staircase, hardly bothering to be subtle about touching his earpiece. Two large, stoic men watched him from across the room.

“The problem is he hasn’t looked at me once,” she snapped. “Instead he’s been eying Benji since we got here.”

Benji looked up, startled by this information. Sure enough, Krysic was staring at him, eyes still narrowed in what Benji had earlier interpreted as suspicion but was apparently more like an elderly terrorist’s attempt at flirtation.

_Shit._ He wanted to look over at Ethan, could practically feel his surprise turned in Benji’s direction, but looking would give too much away to Krysic. Right now Benji was just a waiter, he had nothing to do with International super-spy Ethan Hunt.

“What can I say, I’m irresistible,” Benji said, bitingly. He suppressed a frustrated sigh, _really_ not wanting to say what he was about to say. He turned away from Krysic so he wouldn’t see his mouth move. “Alright, new plan. Jane and I will switch places. I’ll keep the old bastard occupied, Jane go after the records.”

“Deal,” Jane said, sounding relieved.

“Uh—hang on,” Ethan said. “Benji are you sure you want to do this?”

“Ethan… I’m not going to grace that with a response. Brandt, are we a go?”

“Affirmative. Do what you need to do. Good luck, Pluto, good luck, Venus.”

Benji swallowed. Brandt’s use of their old code names meant he was worried about this sudden departure from his carefully constructed plan.

“Fine, just… good luck, both of you. Be careful.” Ethan left the staircase and started wandering through the room, champagne glass held loose in his hand.

Benji had been avoiding going anywhere near Krysic all evening, trying not to draw attention to himself, but now he made his way over, trying to look casual. He’d never been good at this, flirting, seduction, not when he wasn’t interested in the person in question, not even when he _was_ interested, if his abundance of awkward moments with Ethan were any indication.

_Damn it._ Was this how Jane felt all the time? He’d become the bait—again.

“Benji, are you sure you’re alright with this?” Ethan said, in a knowing way that made Benji sure he’d switched them to a private channel. Benji huffed, the fear that had been growing in his chest replaced with anger and determination. He would hold on to Ethan’s questioning, his doubt— _his worry?_ —let it bolster him into doing what he needed to do. He was a secret agent for fuck’s sake, sometimes unpleasant things were necessary for the good of the mission. It wouldn’t be long anyway, if Jane could get in and out in five minutes everything would be fine. He could handle five minutes.

“I think we’re past that point, Ethan,” he said under his breath, pretending to look around for someone to serve champagne to so Krysic wouldn’t see his mouth move. “This needs to be done, and needs to be done now. I’m fine. It’ll be alright.”

Ethan sighed in frustration, seemed ready to protest. Benji saw him shake his head out of the corner of his eye.

“Okay,” he said, giving up. “He sees you, he’s looking at you, don’t look at him yet.”

Benji blinked. He suddenly remembered something Jane had told him years ago, when she’d nervously but successfully seduced Brij Nath in Mumbai. Ethan’s instructing voice had been in her ear until she’d told him to piss off. Ethan had kissed her to make Nath jealous… Benji’s stomach flipped over, knowing that would not happen in this situation, but unable to keep the image at bay.

“Go for Czech, he’s more likely to be interested if he thinks you’re local.”

Benji served more drinks a few feet away from Krysic, his back to him, until he felt a hand on his arm. He suppressed a shudder and turned, smiling politely. Krysic took a glass, holding Benji’s gaze hostage. The hand tightened momentarily around his forearm.

“Tell me,” Krysic said in Czech, “what is your name?”

 

Benji had gone with ‘Tomas.’ He even invented a backstory on the fly, but beyond his name, Krysic—“Petar, please,”—didn’t seem particularly interested in personal details. Ethan had long since stopped talking in his ear because, well, it had been painfully easy to get Krysic out of the ballroom. Benji had barely said a word before Krysic suggested they “get some air.” He’d had to physically restrain himself from glancing at Ethan before leaving. It could blow his cover. And it would make Ethan worry.

Benji followed Krysic through the crowd and out to a partially deserted garden terrace. With one threatening look it became completely deserted.

Benji half-leaned on the balcony ledge, not entirely sure how to play this, deciding on “bewildered but interested.” He kept his eyes wide and trained upward on Krysic’s face. Up close the man was tall, once built, probably the old muscle of some crime organization or another that had murdered his way into the mansion, fortune, and respect he now enjoyed. Benji was surprised that he kept his distance, a few feet between them as they stood side-by-side at the balcony.

He didn’t ask Benji any questions but Benji struggled to keep up with Czech just in case. He could speak it better than he could understand it, though Krysic just seemed to be monologuing at length about the various members of government that had shown up and the ones that had not. Benji just caught the name of a minister he recognized when Krysic sighed and abruptly turned toward him. Benji fought off a spike of fear, surprised and ashamed at this reaction. The part of his mind not rapidly translating Czech was actively trying to keep memories of Lane (and Vinter) out of the situation.

“Are you feeling alright?” Krysic said, seeing how Benji startled.

Benji snapped back into the moment looked up at him. “Yes, of course.”

The man smirked. “I know, I am an intimidating presence, but don’t be scared.”

In a very different situation, Benji might have laughed at such a line.

“Tell me, do you know how to defend yourself?” Krysic said. Benji mentally translated this twice.

“I’m not sure I understand,” he said, with a smile.

Krysic took a step toward him and Benji was suddenly very aware how alone they were. Any behavior even hinting at homosexuality was dangerous in this part of the world, but if Krysic had the kind of respect and fear he seemed to think he did there would be a lot he could get away with. For a split second Benji weighed the pros and cons of just knocking him out and taking off. But there were eyes in the windows above them, cameras overhead. He wouldn’t get far.

“I’m asking,” Krysic said, his voice lower, “if you would defend me were someone to attack.”

Benji blinked.

“There is a man here who wants to do me harm. Perhaps you could protect me this evening?”

The words were casual but the tone was salacious.

Benji schooled his face into what he hoped was an interested expression and locked eyes with the old mobster.

“I’ll do my best.”

Krysic laughed and stepped away from the balcony ledge.

“Come,” he said. “Let’s walk through the gardens. After awhile I find politicians boring.”

Benji turned to follow just as Jane’s voice piped into his ear.

“I’m on the fourth floor,” she said. “Benji, I need three minutes. Ethan—”

“Got it,” Ethan said. “Antagonize, distract, escape.”

Benji puts his hands behind his back as they walked. He didn’t know what else to do with them.

Krysic launched into another explanation about the influence he had over the local politicians, about how difficult it was to find skilled gardeners, about how good Benji looked in his wait-staff tux and black-rimmed glasses. His phone dinged twice but Benji managed to strategically time his questions to distract from the noise.

Meanwhile Jane kept him updated on her progress.

“Alright, Benji, I think everything will be fine, but if Krysic is going to get any more alerts it’ll be in about ten seconds.”

Benji cleared his throat by way of acknowledgement.

“So, this man who came here to hurt you, what does he want?” Benji missed the mark by half a second and phone dinged audibly. Krysic stopped walking, face drawn in confusion, hand reaching into his jacket pocket…Benji grabbed his shoulders, surged upward and kissed him.

“Got it, heading out now,” Jane said.

Krysic responded immediately, the phone forgotten, and Benji wondered how he was going to get out of the this one, because if Krysic became too enthusiastic Benji might just vomit on him. The old man tasted like champagne and cigars, not as horrible as Benji was expecting, but unpleasant enough that he forced his body not to recoil. Instead he tried to stay put as arms wrapped around him, as his thoughts slipping away, edging further and further toward panic. He was a professional, he was in control, this was nothing like the other thing, he could handle this…

A shout from near his shoulder, and Krysic was wrenched away from him. Benji leapt back from the blur of movement, took a moment to catch up with the sudden and violent tussle in front of him. Ethan, dark-suited, teeth bared, punched a caught-off-guard Krysic in the face, once, twice in quick succession. More shouts from the patio as guards burst through the fancy double doors, guns drawn.

“Ethan!” Benji shouted, trying to grab his elbow, not bothering to attempt to preserve his cover. Ethan twisted away from him and hit Krysic again, who was starting to get ahold of himself. He shoved Ethan away with ease and produced a knife from nowhere. Benji didn’t think—he threw himself between them.

Krysic shouted something in Czech, too loud, too angry for Benji to interpret. Even at his age Krysic was larger and stronger than him and Benji took a blow to the face and caught the knife with his hand before it could sink into his neck. It wrenched away from his palm, stinging, when Ethan’s foot connected with the side of Krysic’s head and he went down. Benji grabbed Ethan’s arm to keep him from following and took stock of their surroundings.

The only way out was a gate at the far end of the garden.

“Whatever Ethan is doing is working, all of the guards are rushing outside,” Jane said in Benji’s ear. “I’m heading out now.”

“Well, we’re in a bit of a situation,” Benji said, full volume, no longer caring. “Luther, need you to meet us at the southwest corner of the mansion, we’ll be there in sixty seconds.” If he had to drag Ethan out of there, he would. “Ethan—!”

Benji hauled him away, knowing the more distance they put between themselves and the Syndicate leader, the better chance they’d be shot at.

Thankfully this time Ethan followed him. More shouts from behind. Gunfire. The stupid garden gravel that Krysic had been going on about did not make for ideal sprinting. Neither did Benji’s stiff leather shoes. A bullet wizzed past on his left and he ducked automatically.

Ahead of them, Benji spotted Luther’s nondescript van screech to a halt next to the gate. It was low enough that they could vault over it easily. Ethan grunted in pain when he landed on the other side. Benji threw open the sliding door, leaving a handprint and a trail of blood on the handle. He shoved Ethan inside, diving in after him. Luther stepped on it and they were gone.

When it came to making a vehicle disappear, no one could match Luther. His photographic memory could decide in an instant where no one would ever look for them, and Benji knew it would take only moments before Krysic’s men were scratching their heads wondering where they’d gone.

“Fucking hell, Ethan” Benji breathed, holding his hand aloft to try to stem the flow of blood. “What the fuck was all that about?”

“Ah, shit.”

Ethan had peeled off his tux jacket and was holding his side, cringing. His hand came away red. Benji gaped, going cold.

“Don’t freak out,” Ethan said, seeing that Benji was a millimeter from exploding. “it’s just a graze.”

“You were _shot_ , you absolute bloody maniac!”

“ _You_ were stabbed—”

“This is barely a stab wound, and it wouldn’t have happened if you’d hadn’t attacked him! Why did you even _do_ that? All you had to do was—”

“What else was I supposed to do, Benji?! That psycho had a his tongue halfway down your—”

“Hey!” Luther shouted from the front seat. They went silent immediately. “If I have to talk to you two like children I will: yelling at each other is neither nice, nor productive.” He took a sharp left and Ethan ended up sprawled half on top of Benji, bleeding freely onto his trousers. “Benji, get out the emergency kit, just stop the bleeding for now, y’all can stitch up back at the safe-house.”

“ _We_ can—why, where are you going?”

“Got to go back for Carter. If you hadn’t noticed, we left her behind. Brandt still has a tail, so I’ve got to ditch this and pick her up in something they won’t recognize. With those files it’s too dangerous for her to make her way back to the house on foot. Remember the financial files? The God damn reason we’re out here in the first place?”

“Shit…Carter,” Ethan said, removing himself from Benji and leaning against the side of the van.

“Yeah, agent Carter, your _teammate_ ,” Luther said. “I’m gonna choose not to comment on whatever happened back there, but y’all better figure your shit out. If this whole thing goes up in smoke…”

He shook his head and Ethan cringed. Luther didn’t have to finish that sentence.

 

Back at the safe-house, they marched in silence up to the third floor and into the awkwardly placed bathroom. It was long and narrow, with one grimy window above the chipped bathtub. Ethan stripped off the bloody dress shirt and sat on the lidded toilet seat while Benji ran his stinging hand under icy water in the sink. It wasn’t a deep cut, but he’d have to clean and bandage it before he could be of any help to Ethan. Ethan was watching him from where he sat, hand covering his side.

Benji looked away quickly, turning off the water. He took care of the wound quickly and pulled out the first aid kit, ignoring Ethan as he busied himself with the iodine.

The bathroom was quiet while Benji prepped the needle and Ethan cleaned his wound, the silence turning uncomfortable, loaded with things unsaid. They seemed to come at the same time to the realization that Benji was expecting an apology.

Ethan sighed.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”

Benji nodded, perching on the edge of the bathtub.

“You think?” he said softly. He tried to stay calm, tried to steady his hands as they started stitching up Ethan’s skin. Ethan winced a bit at the first puncture of the needle.

“What, did you think I didn’t have an extraction plan? I had it under control, Ethan, and then you just came barging in—”

“I know, alright? I know I fucked up.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s just been a weird night.”

They had not spoken about their conversation that morning. Benji had no idea what Ethan thought about it, if that had anything to do with the way he’d been acting, the strange looks he’d been giving Benji.

“You’ve been weird all day, Ethan. Why were you so worried about the stupid elevator earlier? Why’ve you been…?” He stopped talking and focused on stitching. It wasn’t a large wound. He used Ethan’s ruined shirt to wipe away a fresh swell of blood.

He wanted to ask why Ethan had been staring at him all day. It seemed like every time Benji turned around there he was, lids slightly lowered, mouth slightly open, like he wasn’t sure what to make of Benji anymore. But there was an implication to this question that Benji didn’t want to hear come out of his mouth. It would sound needy, desperate, too hopeful. What if those looks had just been in Benji’s head?

Ethan shut his eyes, gripped the edge of the sink tightly. Benji tied off the bloody thread and covered the entire wound with a medicated bandage.

“I’m sorry that I was weird about the thing with the elevator,” Ethan said. He opened his eyes and looked down at his hands. “I was just worried about you. I…a long time ago there was a similar situation, and it went badly. I’ve lost a lot of people in this job but that one…” he trailed off and Benji realized he was holding his breath.

Ethan so rarely spoke about his early days at the IMF. Benji had heard rumors, of course. His entire team dead, him framed as a traitor. But none of that had ever been confirmed for him, and he considered himself too honorable to hack into the records and find out for himself.

“It happened so suddenly. Everything went wrong that night, everything fell apart, but it was losing Jack that just about tipped me over the edge. And tonight just felt a little too similar.”

Benji desperately wanted to ask about this Jack, whoever he’d been, but knew now was definitely not the time.

“And then you go and get yourself into that situation with Krysic and I just stopped thinking and acted.”

“Oh, _I_ got myself into the the thing with Krysic?” Benji said in disbelief, standing up to wash off the needle, and because he didn’t want to look at Ethan. “That was the _plan_ —”

“No it wasn’t—”

“Yes it was, we just adapted it a bit on the fly. There’s no reason Jane would have been in any less danger than I was. Why were you fine with it when it was her chatting up the mobster?”

Ethan stood up, hand pressed over the bandage on his side.

“Because as far as I know, Carter isn’t dealing with any recent sexual trauma. If she was I’d be just as concerned that she was pushing herself too far and not caring about her own recovery.”

Benji didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t want to think about it, any of it. But Ethan was right, that was part of the problem. He couldn’t continue to ignore everything that had happened and expect it to just go away. There were already so many things that kept him up at night, but he could already feel that this would grow worse if he didn’t try to do something about it.

He turned away, leaning against the sink without remembering the cut on his hand.

“Shit,” he said, snatching it away and watching the bandage bubble up with blood.

“You shouldn’t have done that, either,” Ethan said softly.

“He had a knife and you picked a fight, I wasn’t about to stand there and watch.”

Something unidentifiable crossed Ethan’s face. Benji suddenly struggled to keep his eyes on his face, realizing how shirtless he was, how close they were standing. He looked away.

“Benji—”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore, Ethan, can we just leave it?”

But Ethan shook his head.

“There are too many things you don’t talk about, Benji.”

Benji opened his mouth to protest, but this was entirely accurate. He had good reason not to talk about things. Especially with Ethan.

“And most of it you don’t need to talk about with me,” Ethan went on, “you should see a professional back at IMF for those things. I do, Luther does, it’s a completely reasonable part of doing this job. But I think there are some things we should talk about.”

“Like what?” Benji said, slightly afraid to ask.

Ethan edged closer, leaned a hand on the sink.

“Like why we end up in these situations over and over.”

Benji’s heart jumped into overdrive. He felt a bit lightheaded and knew it was not from the wound on his hand. By situations, did Ethan mean all the time they seemed to spend bloodied and standing too close together?

“What situations?” he said, a bit weakly, not able to look away from Ethan’s face. Ethan didn’t break eye contact.

“Like you refusing to leave me in Vienna even when you were in danger. Like Lane knowing the perfect way to get to me through you. Like you jumping in front of a knife for me.” He paused for a moment. “Like the times I see you looking at me.”

Benji took a breath.

“What are you asking me, right now?”

“I think you know what I’m asking.”

He blinked.

“I—I think you’re mistaking team loyalty for s—something else,” Benji said doggedly, warning bells going off in his head, feeling like a small gooey creature being dragged into the sunlight. “Y’know, this is exactly why I don’t tell people at work that I’m gay, because some big fucking _ego_ is gonna misconstrue basic teammate concern for something more dramatic.”

“That is not at all what I’m doing Benji, and you know you’re deflecting right now. I’d be saying these things even if I thought you were straight, which, by the way, I did up until about eighteen hours ago. But that’s beside the point.”

“And what is the point?”

“My _point_ is that we both take risks for each other, sometimes necessary, sometimes not, and I think it’s time we acknowledge why that is.”

“And why is it?” he said, jaw tight. Gone were the days when Benji had been an open book, when he muttered every thought under his breath and wore his heart on his sleeve. Jane had always pushed him to tell Ethan how he felt, but now, when it finally came down to it, he knew there was no way in hell he ever would. Someone would have to pull the secret off his cold, dead corpse—

“God damn it, Benji,” Ethan said. He stepped into Benji’s space, hand sliding around the back of his neck. There was a split second when Benji wasn’t sure which way was up, then all of his stubbornness evaporating in heat and surprise when Ethan kissed him.

It was like the floor had disappeared and they’d fallen at once into oblivion, like they’d been catapulting towards one another for a decade, blind to the coming collision.

Ethan’s forehead knocked against the glasses Benji forgot he’d been wearing, and Ethan broke away for a moment to pull them off and toss them onto the rug by the door. Benji caught a glimpse of his eyes, hard, determined, before they were kissing again, Benji not even sure when he’d started kissing back, when he’d taken a fist-full of Ethan’s hair and licked into his mouth.

He ran a hand down Ethan’s muscled back, careful to avoid the bandage, and Ethan pressed their bodies closer together, kissed him more deeply. Benji was sure he was going to collapse with the weight of what was happening, his brain barely able to catch up with it all. After what felt like hours, in which Benji thought he might fall apart under Ethan’s hands, be undone by his mouth, Ethan spun them around and pressed Benji’s back up against the hard edge of the sink.

He broke the kiss suddenly, Benji’s hand still tangled in his hair.

“I’m sorry,” Ethan said. “I should have asked, I shouldn’t have just—”

Benji kissed him hard, swallowing his words. “Shut up,” he growled into his mouth and Ethan smiled against his lips, that crooked, anything goes smile that Benji loved so much. Something pulled at his throat and he realized that Ethan had undone his bowtie, was pulling it off and tossing it on the floor. He started on the top buttons of Benji’s shirt.

Benji would have blushed but all his blood suddenly rushed south from the feeling on Ethan’s hands on his bare skin, from the fact that Ethan was undressing him. His stab of worry over his growing erection disappeared when Ethan moaned into his mouth and pressed himself against Benji, clearly getting hard as well. He barely got through three buttons before ripping the shirt open impatiently. The rest of the buttons flew apart and bounced on the floor as Benji laughed.

They broke apart to slide the shirt off his shoulders and Benji could have fainted from the look on Ethan’s face, lips swollen, hair a mess, eyes going dark. He ran his hands over Benji’s chest, down his abs, one palm pressing against his cock over the tuxedo pants.

“I want you,” Ethan said in a rush, as though they might lose this at any moment. “Do you want me?”

“Fuck, Ethan, I’ve wanted you for years,” Benji gasped. He had lost control of his words. He couldn’t hide anything anymore if he wanted to. Ethan leaned in and kissed his neck.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” He said. Benji rested his hands on his hips.

“You’re Ethan bloody Hunt, everyone wants you. Besides, I thought it was completely obvious.”

Ethan laughed softly and shook his head, kissing him so sweetly that Benji screwed up his face, held the back of Ethan’s head, didn’t dare believe this was real. It was as if every one of their almost touches, their brief moments of intimacy over the past ten years had been a question, a question that was finally answered.

Ethan undid his own belt and Benji’s stomach was in free fall. He ran a hand across newly exposed skin, grabbed Ethan’s ass, using the leverage to grind their hips together. Ethan moaned into his mouth, rolled his hips. He undid the top button of Benji’s pants, then hesitated. He broke away and kissed a line up Benji’s neck, sucked on his earlobe.

“Benji,” he said, so close to his ear that Benji shivered. “I want you to bend me over this sink and fuck me.”

For a moment Benji was sure he’d just had an out of body experience, because there was no way in hell that Ethan bloody Hunt had just said that to him.

He sighed, shakily. “Oh my God, Ethan.”

“Do you want that?” Ethan said, hands wandering down his trousers, teeth on the shell of his ear.

“Are you kidding me, yes, fucking hell.” Benji didn’t know how to make his voice stop quivering.

Ethan let go of his ear, pulled away slightly, looked Benji up and down.

“I’m sorry, I don’t want to push you into anything you don’t want to do, Benji, I want you to be honest with me—”

Benji grabbed his hips and spun them around, switching their positions. He kissed him hard.

“Ethan, you have no idea how much I want you,” he said, not even caring how breathless he sounded. “I want to do anything and everything.”

They crashed together again, Benji knocking the first aid kit off the edge of the sink. Ethan undid his own trousers the rest of the way, then started on Benji’s. His hands were hot on Benji’s bare skin, and he felt hypersensitive to his touch, like he was another safe Ethan was about to unlock. It was like Ethan’s impromptu back massage all over again, it was like those hands were bringing him back to life.

In a moment of clarity, it occurred to Benji that he should search the medicine cabinet for lube and condoms if they were really about to do this. He pulled away muttering about supplies and reached for the little mirrored door, spotting his flushed, red reflection.

“Behind the burn treatment kit,” Ethan said, looking up as he undid Benji’s belt.

Benji almost laughed with how ridiculous this all was, the two of them trying to fuck in the minuscule bathroom in a safe house in Ostrava while the rest of their team ran from the remains of the Syndicate. If he had any measure of rationality he would stop this, go help the team, or at the very least go find a bed, but years of this career had put a ticking clock in his head. He could be patient if he needed to be, but he was never able to turn off the voice that said _now, now, now, before it’s too late._

He grabbed the things they needed and balanced them on the sink. He kissed Ethan again, wrapped his arms around him, not quite ready to give this part up despite how ready his body seemed to be to move on. He wanted to spend an entire day just kissing Ethan, because that was apparently something he was able to do now. With a thrill of worry he wondered suddenly what this was, what would be between them when this thing was over…

But then a belt buckle hit the floor and Ethan got their trousers and pants the rest of the way off. Benji moaned into his mouth when Ethan took both of them in hand, sliding his thumb over the head of Benji’s cock. His hand was too dry as he jerked them off, too gentle and too slow, smirking against Benji’s mouth like this was some kind of tease. Benji gasped and laughed.

“This won’t last terribly long if you start in with that,” he said, and for a moment rested their foreheads together. “I have to admit, it’s been awhile.”

Ethan’s smile dipped a little and he nodded. “Yeah, for me too.”

Benji ran a hand through his hair like he’d always wanted to do, and kissed him again, sucking on his lower lip until Ethan was panting, hands sliding over Benji’s back like he couldn’t reach enough of him.

“Come on,” Ethan said, grabbing blindly for the lube, letting go of Benji’s cock. He lubed up his fingers and prepped himself, one hand braced on the edge of the sink, one leg thrown around Benji’s waist for support. His ass was just visible in the mirror and Benji kissed his neck and bit his earlobe as he watched Ethan’s fingers slide in and out of himself, feeling drunk on the sight of it. He pressed their hips together, rolled his body against Ethan’s, finally feeling it all slide away—the incessant self-awareness, the feeling of watching himself from behind his own eyes, the worrying at every turn that he was too much or not enough. He was here with Ethan. This was happening now.

Ethan reclaimed Benji’s mouth, sucking on his tongue, one hand squeezing his ass, the other expertly slipping on the condom.

“C’mon,” Ethan said again, in a rush. He was right—these were stollen moments, could be reclaimed at any time. He turned to face the mirror, looked at Benji in that way that had always lit Benji’s veins on fire. He wondered if it had always meant what it surely meant now.

He kissed the back of Ethan’s neck, laughed when Ethan’s foot slipped off the pipe he’d propped it up on, trying to find a decent position. There was not much room to maneuver. Ethan bent further over the sink. Benji pressed himself slowly inside of Ethan, and fuck he was hot, and so tight that Benji had to grit his teeth. Ethan let out a strained breath.

“Alright?” Benji paused.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ethan said, smiling. “You’re just bigger than my fingers.”

Benji forcibly shut down the part of his brain that wanted to analyze what he knew about Ethan’s sexually history and what had led him to this point. Now was not the time. He pressed in the rest of the way, panting, then drew out just as slowly, watching the look on Ethan’s face in the mirror. His eyes were closed, eyebrows high, mouth open. It was a look he’d never seen from him before. The thought that he’d made it appear made him feel electric, like he could and would do absolutely anything to keep that look on his face.

He pressed back in, torturously slowly.

“Benji,” Ethan said, breathlessly. “It’s okay, I’m okay, just fuck me.”

Benji moaned into his hair and snapped his hips forward. Ethan settled into a better position and Benji set a pace, still brutally slow, because he couldn’t stand it if this ended too quickly. He bit the shell of Ethan’s ear, caught his eye in the mirror. He rolled his hips, heart beating so loudly he was sure Ethan could hear it.

He reached around and slid a hand down Ethan’s cock, loving the weight of it, wishing he could lick it.

“No, stop,” Ethan breathed, and Benji let go at once, scared for a moment he’d done something wrong. “Benji.” They locked eyes in the mirror, and Ethan fixed him with one of his half smiles that Benji had long ago learned meant _danger, danger, danger._ “Fuck me so hard I come untouched,” he said, and Benji felt winded, like he’d just been punched in the gut.

“Oh, God,” he said, rolling his hips, picking up the pace, mind all but disappearing in the overwhelming feeling of Ethan all around him. Ethan’s hand was braced on the mirror with Benji’s beside it, half on top of it. Benji’s other hand was on Ethan’s hip, holding on too tightly but unable to let go. The bandage on his hand had given up, the blood spilled out from beneath it, dripping down the mirror and down Ethan’s arm.

Benji attached his mouth to Ethan’s neck while he fucked him harder, faster, the sink rattling, their hands slipping in the blood. Ethan panted out half words, pressing into Benji, reaching backwards to tangle a hand through his hair. They stood on top of their discarded clothes, Benji’s ripped shirt half-wrapped around Ethan’s leg, only one of Benji’s shoes successfully removed, his trousers tangled around one foot.

Benji couldn’t seem to shut up, knowing he was probably embarrassing himself, not quite caring. He mouthed at Ethan’s ear, face half in his hair, moaning his name with every other thrust— _Ethan, fuck, Ethan—_ barely sure if he was saying it aloud or just in his head.

“Oh God—harder—please,” Ethan panted. “Fuck, Ben—no idea how long I’ve wanted—”

Despite the request, Benji slowed down, rolling his hips in slow, shallow thrusts. Ethan gasped.

“Yeah?” he breathed into Ethan’s ear. “How long?” It was partially a sudden desire to talk dirty and partially genuine curiosity. He nipped at Ethan’s earlobe.

Ethan opened his eyes and looked at him in the mirror. “From the moment I got in that van outside the Russian prison and realized who was driving.”

“ _Fuck,_ Ethan,” Benji said, burying his face in Ethan’s hair. It smelled like mint and blood.

“That whole mission—Just wanted to touch you.”

Benji wanted to ask _why didn’t you?_ Instead he grabbed Ethan’s chin to turn his head and kiss him, open mouthed and sloppy, breaking away as he picked up the pace again. He leaned back for a better angle, taking a handful of Ethan’s hair.

“Oh God, Benji,” Ethan panted, falling forward onto his elbows. “Yeah, right there.”

“Yeah?”

Ethan nodded, panting, forehead knocking into the mirror.

“Fuck, you feel good.”

Benji slid his bleeding hand down to Ethan’s hip, holding him tight as he fucked into him, pressure building in his balls. He tried to hold it off but knew it was too late.

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” He was babbling, unable to slow down the inevitable. “I’m gonna come—”

“God yes, come for me,” Ethan said, looking up at him in the mirror, smile sliding onto his face. “Come on, that’s an order, agent Dunn.”

Benji shouted as the orgasm crashed into him, nearly a physical thing that inhaled him and spat him back out, back into the body that was tingling and starry-eyed, holding onto the man in front of him like he might float away. He was still bucking his hips through the last waves of it, and forced himself to stop as it faded, leaving him feeling sticking and shameful.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he said again, and pulled out slowly.

Ethan turned around to face him, breathing hard, his eyes wide.

“Benji, never fucking apologize for an orgasm,” he said, and kissed him, wrapping his arms around him.

“But, you told me to—”

Ethan laughed. “I don’t care about that, I wasn’t really serious—”

But Benji shook his head, sudden determination lighting him up in the wake of the orgasm. He let go of Ethan and kissed a trail down his chest, slid onto his knees on the ragged bathmat and their pile of bloody clothes. Ethan was still painfully hard, leaking and red. He stared down at Benji on his knees in front of him, his eyes going wide when he realized what Benji meant to do.

“Benji, I don’t think you should—you don’t have to—”

“I want to,” Benji said.

He knew if he didn’t do this now it would take root in his mind, growing and blocking some part of him, ever harder to tear away as time went on.

He licked his lips.

“Just, um. Don’t touch me? Just let me do all the work.”

“‘Course,” Ethan nodded, and gripped the sink behind him.

This was nothing like before. His mind knew that, but some part of his body was holding panic just at the edges, unsure if it would be needed. Taking a deep breathe, Benji licked a stripe up the underside of Ethan’s cock and looked up to see his head roll back, his hands tighten. He sighed and breathed out Benji’s name.

This was Ethan—Ethan who Benji trusted more than anyone in the world, Ethan who would never hurt him, Ethan who he wanted to make as happy as possible, Ethan who he—

He slid Ethan’s cock into his mouth before he could finish the thought, pressing his tongue to the underside, opening the back of his throat, bobbing his head. He was determined to make this theirs, to keep out the intrusions of hateful memories. Looking back up at Ethan, he slid his hands up the backs of his legs and squeezed his ass.

“Oh God, Benji,” he said, though this time it sounded different, had lost all of the desperate want. Now his voice was thick with something that Benji didn’t dare name. “You’re so…I think I…” he couldn’t seem to be able to put a sentence together and it hit Benji with a fresh thrill that he was responsible for this new speechlessness.

Ethan panted for a moment, then gasped, his eyes flying open. “I’m gonna come,” he said, “you should—” but Benji sucked harder, ran his hands over his back, dug his nails into his skin. He moaned and shuddered, stopped himself from thrusting as he came in Benji’s mouth. Benji swallowed, kept swallowing until Ethan was soft and jittery with sensitivity.

“Benji,” Ethan said. He took his hand and pulled him back up. “Are you okay, was that okay—?”

Benji kissed him, hoping he wasn’t turned off by the taste of himself in Benji’s mouth, but he kissed back with enthusiasm until Benji broke away and nodded.

“It was brilliant.”

They stood there for a moment, leaning on each other, naked and bloody and grinning. Distantly, Benji could hear that someone was coming up the stairs, but it hardly registered what that meant until the door flew open. With a crunch of glass, Benji looked over to see his broken glasses under one of Jane’s feet.

“Shit,” Ethan said under his breath, turning away from the door, grabbing Benji’s ripped shirt to try to cover them up.

"Jane," Benji said, stupidly, trying to cover himself up with his hands.

She stared around the small room, mouth open in surprise. She leaned a hand on her hip.

“Well,” she said, a bit winded, though her eyes were shining with the edge of laughter. “We’re back.”

“Er—” Benji said, face lighting up, no idea what he should do or say.

“You should probably do something about your hand, you’re bleeding everywhere,” she said, unable to contain a smile.

Benji looked around. He had left bloody smears and handprints on the mirror, and the sink, and all over Ethan’s body.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't post much because somehow I get stage fright even on the internet, but here is my Tumblr: www.tumblr.com/blog/pineprincess92  
> Feel free to come freak out with me over this wonderful little ship :D


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